Assassination Attempt
On 25 September 1997, Mashal was the target of an assassination attempt carried out by the Israeli Mossad under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet. The assassination was intended as retaliation to the 1997 Mahane Yehuda Market Bombings.
The Mossad agents waited at the entrance of the Hamas offices in Amman, with the intention of assassinating Khalid Mashal. At the time of the assassination attempt Mashal was considered Hamas' Jordanian branch chief. Two Mossad agents carrying fake Canadian passports entered Jordan, where Mashal was living. As Mashal walked into his office, one of the agents came up from behind and held a device to Mashal's left ear that transmitted a fast-acting poison.
However, immediately afterwards, Khalid Mashal's personal chauffeur and a security guard intervened. The chauffeur, who saw what was happening, hit the agent with a newspaper on his hand. The security guard began to chase the agents, and was able to note the license plate number of the car in which they had escaped, and boarded a passing car in order to pursue them. The agents were unaware that they were being followed. After some 300 meters, they stopped their car and left it. The security guard chased them and, with the help of a plainclothes policeman, managed to overpower and apprehend them. The agents were driven by the policeman and the security guard in a taxi to the nearest police station, and placed under arrest.
Immediately after the incident, Jordan's King Hussein demanded that Benjamin Netanyahu turn over the antidote for the poison. At first Netanyahu refused, but as the incident grew in political significance, American President Bill Clinton intervened and compelled Netanyahu to turn over the antidote. The U.S. President Bill Clinton described the Israeli Prime Minister after with the following words: «I can not deal with this man (Netanyahu), He is impossible». The Head of the Mossad, Danny Yatom, flew to Jordan, with the Prime Minister's consent, bringing with him an antidote to treat Khalid Mashal.
Mashal was given the antidote, thus saving his life. In the negotiations subsequently conducted for the release of the agents, an agreement was reached with the Jordanian authorities whereby, in exchange for the release of Shaykh Yasin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, and a number of other prisoners held in Israel, they would release the Israeli agents and allow them to return to Israel.
After the incident Mashal told Third Way Magazine: "Israeli threats have one of two effects: some people are intimidated, but others become more defiant and determined. I am one of the latter."
Read more about this topic: Khaled Mashal
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