US EditionTunisians Remember the Israeli Strike that Bound Their Fate with Palestinians 40 Years Ago
The airstrike, named Operation Wooden Leg, killed 68 people and wounded over 100 in retaliation for the killing of three Israelis in Cyprus, Israeli officials said.
- On Oct. 1, 1985, Israeli warplanes carried out a long-range airstrike on the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Hammam Chott, Tunisia.
- Hosting the exiled PLO since 1982, Tunisia called Israel's strike a violation of its sovereignty, while Israel said the attack was self-defense after three Israelis died in Cyprus.
- Operationally, Israeli jets, including eight F-15s and two Boeing-707 tankers, flew over 1,200 kilometers to Hammam Chott, where Yasser Arafat narrowly escaped the strike.
- The attack killed 68 people, including 50 Palestinians and 18 Tunisians, and wounded over 100, according to Tunisian government figures.
- Amid today's Israel-Hamas war, the memory of the 1985 strike still shapes Tunisian views and connects to recent Global Sumud Flotilla disputes involving alleged Israeli strikes.
11 Articles
11 Articles
On 1 October 1985, Israeli aviation took advantage of the visit to Tunisia of the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, to bomb the capital. A case that ended before international justice and echoed, today, the drone attacks on the Gaza flotilla in the port of Sidi Bou Said.
Forty years ago, on October 1, 1985, Israeli aircraft bombed the Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in Hammam Shatt, a southern suburb of Tunis. This aerial operation remains, to this day, the most distant ever carried out by Tel Aviv. The drone attacks on the Gaza flotilla, moored off the coast of Tunis in early September 2025, revived this memory. Tahar Al-Cheikh, Egyptian director of the Palestinian News and Information Agency (Wa…
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