Israeli strike kills 80-year-old Palestinian academic and former hijacker in Lebanon
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Alex MacDonald
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Mon, 04/20/2026 - 14:30
Maha Abu Khalil, an early member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, killed in Tyre
A recent picture of Maha Abu Khalil in southern Lebanon (X)
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A Palestinian academic and activist who was one of the first women plane hijackers was killed in an Israeli air strike last week on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, according to Lebanon's state news agency.
Maha Abu Khalil, 80, was killed close to midnight on 17 April, shortly before a 10-day ceasefire was due to come into effect.
At least 13 others were killed and 35 wounded in the strike, while 15 remain unaccounted for.
Abu Khalil was an early member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and in 1969 was arrested in Greece after the attempted hijacking of an El Al flight from Athens.
According to a New York Times report from 30 December 1969, Abu Khalil, described as a 22-year-old schoolteacher, and two others pleaded not guilty on charges of illegal possession of explosives, but admitted they had planned to hijack the plane, which had 29 passengers aboard.
Though the planned hijacking, which was aimed at pressuring for the release of imprisoned Palestinians, was a failure, she would later be released from prison in an exchange.
Maha Abu Khalil with PFLP founder George Habash in August 1970 in Amman, Jordan (Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS)
Abu Khalil went on to work as an academic, activist and social worker in Lebanon, according to the PFLP.
In a statement, the group said her death was a loss to a struggle rooted in "feminism, patriotism, and humanitarianism".
"Maha Abu Khalil will remain present in the national memory and in the record of women fighters who gave their lives for freedom, justice, and human dignity," the group said.
The PFLP were founded by George Habash in 1967 as an explicitly Marxist-Leninist political movement emulating the anti-imperialist struggles of Che Guevara in Latin America and the National Liberation Front in Vietnam.
Israel flattening civilian buildings in southern Lebanon during truce, say commanders
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In recent years the group's prominence has given way to Islamist organisations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but it has continued to be active in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and its armed wing has continued to carry out sporadic attacks on Israeli forces.
Though a ceasefire nominally came into force on Friday, Israel has continued to systematically flatten civilian buildings in southern Lebanon, according to a report in Haaretz.
Civilian infrastructure is being destroyed south of the “yellow line” drawn up by Israel, which is located around 20km south of the Litani River. Israeli forces are prohibited from crossing the line, as per the ceasefire agreement.
Sources told Haaretz that one of the goals of the destruction is to prevent Lebanese residents from returning to areas near the border with Israel.
They said that Israel’s military is assessing the scale of the destruction through digital tools, including statistical systems that track the number of buildings destroyed in each sector.
Israel's war on Lebanon
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