Kozo Okamoto, the Japanese militant who participated in a deadly assault on Tel Aviv’s international airport more than 50 years ago, passed away Thursday in Beirut at the age of 78, according to the Palestinian group that had been providing him protection.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — the second-largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization — confirmed Okamoto’s death and said he had been suffering from a prolonged illness.
Okamoto rarely appeared in public after settling in Lebanon following his release from Israeli custody. Within the PFLP, he was known by the name Ahmad al-Yabani, which translates to Ahmad the Japanese.
In a statement, the PFLP described Okamoto’s life as one “marked by immense sacrifices spanning for decades on the battlefields of struggle in support of the Palestinian cause,” adding that he “never compromised nor faltered but remained steadfast to his principles.”
Okamoto spent 12 years in an Israeli prison for his role in the May 30, 1972 assault on the international airport near Tel Aviv. The attack was believed to have been carried out by members of the Japanese Red Army guerrilla organization in coordination with the PFLP.
During the attack, Okamoto and two fellow militants flew into Tel Aviv on a flight originating in Europe. After retrieving their luggage — which concealed rifles and grenades — the group opened fire on the crowd, killing 26 people and wounding dozens more, according to AP reports from the time.
His two companions died during the attack, while Okamoto himself was wounded and subsequently captured.
Although sentenced to life in prison, Okamoto was freed in 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian fighters. He later obtained political asylum in Lebanon, where he remained until his death.
One of the few times Okamoto appeared publicly in his later years was in May 2022, when he attended a ceremony at a Beirut cemetery — where Palestinian militants and other notable figures are buried — to mark the 50th anniversary of the airport attack.
The Japanese Red Army, a violent far-left organization with ties to Palestinian militant groups, was established in 1971 and carried out several international operations, including the seizure of the U.S. Consulate in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1975.
The PFLP itself became widely known following the simultaneous hijacking of four Western commercial aircraft in 1970 and its role in the diversion of an Air France flight traveling from Tel Aviv to Paris, which was redirected to Entebbe, Uganda.
In its Thursday statement, the PFLP characterized the 1972 airport attack as retaliation for a 1968 Israeli commando raid on Beirut’s international airport.
The PFLP’s current leader, Ahmed Saadat, is among the most prominent Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. He has been accused of orchestrating the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, an ultranationalist who had publicly advocated for the mass removal of Palestinians.
Okamoto’s path to asylum in Lebanon was complicated. Lebanese authorities arrested him and four other Japanese nationals in 1997 in eastern Lebanon, where they had been living illegally for years under the protection of Palestinian and Lebanese leftist groups during the country’s 1975–90 civil war. Following a trial, the other four were extradited to Japan in 2000, while Okamoto became the first individual ever to be granted political asylum in Lebanon.
Japan repeatedly requested that Lebanon extradite Okamoto over the years, but Lebanese authorities consistently refused. He was widely regarded as a hero across Lebanon and much of the Arab world for his support of the Palestinian cause and his opposition to Israel.
During his Lebanese trial, Okamoto described himself as “an Arab resistance fighter.”
