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A Commando Revenge Mission in Disguise as Women
Operation Spring of Youth
April 9, 1973
On the night of April 9 through the early morning of April 10, 1973, a group of Israeli commandos performed one of the most daring clandestine operations in history. Deep in the hostile environment of the city of Beirut, they dealt the enemy a devastating blow by destroying their headquarters and killing three high-ranking officers. To this day, Operation Spring of Youth stands as a landmark to the Israeli special forces' cunning and bravery.
Spring of Youth was a retaliation mission of a much larger campaign, Operation Wrath of God. The operation was organized by the Israeli government, Mossad, and the Israeli Defense Forces, with the objective to hunt down the leaders and perpetrators of the 1972 Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. Eight members of the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes. Backed up by both military and intelligence officials, the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir immediately ordered a retaliation campaign against Black September and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO. For two decades and across the entire world, Israeli agents and commandos hunted down all those in connection with the Munich massacre.
Operation Spring of Youth was the first Wrath of God mission not planned by the Mossad but by the Israeli Defense Forces. The task of executing the mission was given to three elite units of the Israeli military: Sayeret Matkal, the commando unit of the Israeli Army; paratroopers from the Sayeret Tzanhanim unit; and Shayetet 13, the commando unit of the Israeli Navy. Sayeret Matkal was and continues to be Israel's most elite and secretive unit, and was activated immediately after the Munich attack. The mastermind of the operation was the commander of Sayeret Matkal, Ehud Barak, who would eventually become the 10th Prime Minister of Israel.
The prime targets were three high-ranking figures from the PLO and its faction known as the Fatah organization, which led multiple aggressive campaigns against Israel. These targets included Abu Yousef, the leader of Fatah; Kamal Adwan, co-founder of Fatah, Kuwait, and journalist; Dr. Kamal Bhutros Nasser, the man responsible for covert operations in Israel and the official spokesman for the PLO. All three of these men were included on the target list of Operation Wrath of God. They lived in two residential buildings across the street from each other in an affluent neighborhood of Beirut. Sayeret Matkal was given the task of eliminating these men.
During Operation Spring of Youth, the unit was divided into four teams: one for each apartment and one to guard the approach to the buildings. Apart from eliminating the designated targets, the commandos were also instructed to gather as many documents as possible from each apartment. The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad managed to obtain architectural plans for the target buildings, so they were able to build faithful replicas of the apartments in which the targets lived. This allowed the commandos to accurately train for the mission for three weeks. Israeli forces planned the assault with careful attention to detail, including preparations for errors or accidents that might occur. The commandos carried photos of the three individuals to memorize their targets well.
As an additional objective in Operation Spring of Youth, the Israelis planned to attack the Beirut headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another faction of the PLO, as well as their weapons manufacturing facilities and fuel dump stations in the nearby Tyre-Sidon area. The target of the Popular Front headquarters was assigned to the Israeli paratroopers, who devised a plan to storm and destroy the entire building with 80 kilos of explosives. The commandos of Shayetet 13 were given the task of destroying a weapons factory, as they were highly specialized in sea-to-land operations. The mission to eliminate the high-profile leaders was planned to last only as long as the estimated response time for reinforcements from the PLO.
On April 9, Israeli missile boats navigated north from the port of Haifa to the coast of Lebanon, carrying the commandos and their Zodiac speedboats on board. When they entered Lebanese waters, they lowered the boats, which took them to the beach at Ramlet al-Baida, a suburb of Beirut. Once ashore in Beirut, Sayeret Matkal was met by three cars rented and driven by Mossad agents. From there, the commandos drove through the city to the neighborhood of Verdun, where the targets lived. To avoid being detected, they dressed up as tourists. Those who were smaller dressed up as women, putting on wigs and high heels. The commandos even practiced how to walk in high heels during their training. They disguised themselves so that, when they were approaching the building, the Lebanese police force would not be suspicious. Their disguises were successful. Under their shirts and dresses, the commandos carried Uzis, suppressed pistols, and combat knives.
Once the unit arrived at the target area, they split into teams and began their assault on the three apartments in simultaneous, coordinated attacks. The team stormed each apartment by blowing open the entrance doors. In the first apartment, the commandos entered and found Abu Yousef hiding behind the door in his bedroom. As soon as the team saw him, they opened fire with their Uzis and killed him, along with Yousef's wife, who was killed as she tried to shield him from the gunfire. One of Yousef's neighbors, an elderly Italian woman, was also killed by accident as she peeked through her door to check on the commotion in the hallway. Across the street, the second building housed Kamal Nasser, who at the time of the assault was sitting at his desk. He had no time to get up, as the commando shot him immediately after entering. His furniture burst into flames because of the phosphorus bullets the Israelis used. In the third apartment, the Israeli commandos encountered more resistance. Kamal Adwan, who was also caught while sitting at his desk, managed to grab his AK-47 and shot one of the commandos. They returned fire, and he was killed by a burst from their Uzis.
Down in front of the building, the security team had their hands full fighting the Lebanese police, who had appeared at the scene. Two commandos dressed as women were standing in the middle of the street and rained bullets on the police vehicles. There was no time for the police to call for reinforcements. Just two minutes after the attack had started, the commandos rushed out into the street and had already jumped into their vehicles, speeding through the narrow streets of Beirut. The Mossad agents drove the entire unit back to the beach where they had originally disembarked. At the beach, they bumped into a Lebanese army armored personnel carrier. Luckily, the Lebanese soldiers paid no attention to the cars full of tourists.
Once the explosions had gone off and the assault had begun, Colonel Barak, who was guarding the building's entrances, signaled for the paratrooper unit to start their operation. The paratroopers were less subtle in their approach. They fired a burst into the group guarding the entrance to the Popular Front headquarters, where, after a short battle, they entered the building and planted explosives. Once at a safe distance, they set off their explosives and turned the seven-story building into a heap of ruins, killing dozens of Popular Front fighters who were inside. The explosion was well calculated, as none of the neighboring buildings were damaged.
The entire operation lasted 10 minutes longer than planned. Half an hour was needed for all the teams to gather at the evacuation zone. Once they were all there, the commandos, the paratroopers, and the Mossad agents embarked on their Zodiac boats and sailed out. The rental cars were left on the pier with their keys still in the ignitions. The Shayetet 13 group also completed their objectives, and the PLO's facilities were destroyed. Their operation had begun even earlier, as they also had the task of luring the Lebanese and PLO reinforcements away from Beirut. However, those reinforcements never arrived, and the navy commandos left the zone once they had accomplished their goals, with only two Israeli soldiers killed and a few wounded. The operation was considered a major success. A total of five buildings were raided, with three high-ranking enemy officials killed, along with nearly 100 members of the Popular Front.
This, however, was only the beginning of Israel's retaliation program. The Mossad continued to hunt down members of the PLO and Black September over the course of the next two decades. The operation itself was a slap in the face for both the PLO and Lebanon, whose government officials were forced to resign in the days following Operation Spring of Youth. For Israel, the soldiers who performed this daring attack in enemy territory had avenged the deaths of the Olympic athletes who were killed in the Munich massacre. For the Israeli Defense Forces, Spring of Youth is one of the most successful military operations in their history.