Background
After the 1982 Lebanon War, the PLO had been based in Tunisia. On September 25, 1985, during the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, gunmen from the PLO's elite Force 17 unit hijacked an Israeli yacht off the coast of Larnaca, Cyprus, and killed the three Israeli tourists on board. The Israelis were allowed to write down their final thoughts before being shot. The nature of the killings provoked widespread shock in Israel. The PLO claimed that the victims were Mossad agents monitoring Palestinian naval traffic out of Cyprus. The attack was a response for the capture and imprisonment of senior Force 17 commander Faisal Abu Sharah by the Israeli Navy two weeks earlier. Sharah had been sailing on the Opportunity, a small ship that regularly shuttled between Beirut and Lanarca, when it was stopped by an Israeli naval patrol boat with Mossad agents on board. Sharah was arrested, taken to Israel and interrogated. He was then tried and given a heavy prison sentence. Since then, the Israeli Navy and the Mossad had intercepted several other vessels and arrested passengers suspected of terrorist activity.
The Israeli cabinet and the Israeli Air Force desired immediate retaliation, and chose the Tunis headquarters of the PLO as their target. Intelligence supplied to Israel by Jonathan Pollard greatly facilitated the raid. Following the incident, the Arab press had published numerous warnings of Israeli retaliation. Many of the stories were planted by LAP, the Mossad's department of psychological warfare.
On the eve of the attack, Tunisia expressed concern to the United States that it may be attacked by Israel. However, the United States, according to a high-ranking Tunisian official, assured Tunisia there was no reason to worry.
Read more about this topic: Operation Wooden Leg
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