Less than two months after the assassination of the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ali Mustafa, by Zionist occupation forces in 2001, three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine succeeded in assassinating the Israeli Minister of Tourism, Rehavam Zeevi, in Jerusalem.
Abu Ali was seen as the first leader in the Palestinian resistance to be assassinated by Israel following the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada (Al-Aqsa Intifada). The response was commensurate with the crime, as Rehavam Zeevi was the highest-ranking Zionist official to be targeted by Palestinian resistance during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
After the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, the leader Ahmed Saadat assumed leadership of the Popular Front, and in his first speech, he vowed to avenge Abu Ali Mustafa, famously saying, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head." He ordered the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (the military wing of the Popular Front) to take revenge.
The assassination operation was carried out by Majdi al-Rimawi, Hamdi Qur'an, and Basal al-Asmar. They managed to enter the hotel (Hyatt Regency) where Zeevi was staying one day before the scheduled operation using forged passports.
The three young men booked a room for themselves on the seventh floor, just below Zeevi's room on the eighth floor. They immediately began preparing for their plan and equipped their silenced pistols.
On the morning of the next day, October 17, 2001, the three operatives left their room and spread out near the entrances, including the entrance to the eighth floor. Hamdi Qur'an headed to the emergency staircase and ascended to the eighth floor, where Zeevi's room, number 816, was located.
As soon as Zeevi returned from the dining hall after having breakfast, Hamdi Qur'an called out to him, "Hey." Upon Zeevi's turning around, Qur'an fired at him, managing to shoot him three times in the head, causing him serious injuries that later led to his death in the hospital. The three men successfully withdrew from the hotel unharmed.
Rahavam Ze'evi was known for his infamous statement that he often repeated publicly in the media: "The Palestinians are like lice, vermin, and ants; they must be exterminated." He was the proponent of the "Transfer" theory, which advocated for the deportation of all Arabs from Palestine to other Arab countries instead of allowing them to remain in Palestine.
Ze'evi was born in Jerusalem in 1926 and served in the Palmach unit of the Haganah gang in 1942 at the age of 16. The Palmach, meaning "shock troops," was the nucleus of the Zionist occupation army that later participated in the 1948 war.
He committed massacres and atrocities against unarmed Palestinian civilians, including the massacre of the village of Rihya, a suburb of al-Dhahiriya in Hebron, on December 11, 1956. He participated with Ariel Sharon and Meir Har Tzion in a Zionist force that attacked the village's police station, blowing it up and killing more than 20 policemen, including Jordanians, Iraqis, Saudis, and Palestinians, and then demolished a school belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Ze'evi assisted in the writing of false books that misled the Western world about what he called "the Land of Israel," relying on fabricated Jewish artifacts purportedly discovered in Palestine.
He did not accept the Madrid Peace Agreement in 1991 and withdrew from the extremist Likud Party, as he was even more radical than Likud.
He also announced his withdrawal from the government after its decision to withdraw its forces from the Abu Sneineh neighborhood in Hebron in October 2001.
The ones whom carried out the assassination, where are they?
On March 14, 2006, Israel carried out a security operation against Jericho Prison, dubbed "Operation Bringing the Goods," during which the group was arrested. They were brought before the Israeli judiciary, which sentenced Majdi al-Rimawi to 106 years, Hamdi Qur'an to 125 years, and Basal al-Asmar to 60 years. Additionally, Ahmed Sa'adat was sentenced to 30 years in prison for leading a banned political organization, and Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh was sentenced to 31 years for leading a military organization (the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades).
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