Assassination of Rehavam Ze'evi

Rehavam Ze'evi was a military commander, politician, and cabinet minister who joined Ariel Sharon's government as minister of tourism in March 2001.[6] He was also a member of the Knesset and was 75 when he was killed.[6][5] His political positions drew condemnation from many opponents, although some also regarded him as a person of integrity and decency.[6] His appointment to the tourism portfolio placed him in the government during the months preceding the assassination, while his final political dispute concerned the government's handling of security measures and military positions near Hebron.[2]

Immediately before his death, Ze'evi had submitted his resignation in protest against Israel's withdrawal from hilltop positions in Hebron and its easing of restrictions on Palestinians.[2] A contemporary account stated that the resignation was due to take effect on the day of the assassination.[2] A later account placed his submission of the resignation on the preceding day and likewise identified the withdrawal from positions in Hebron as the reason for his decision.[7] He was therefore killed during a dispute within the governing coalition over the government's security policy, while still identified as Israel's tourism minister.[2]

The assassination occurred during a period of extensive Palestinian attacks on Israelis: 185 Israelis were killed between March and December 2001, while 35 suicide bombings were carried out and another 16 were thwarted during those months.[8] Before Ze'evi's death, the General Security Service had increased protection for government ministers amid concern that Palestinian organizations might target them.[1] Ze'evi nevertheless had no bodyguard with him at the hotel, and accounts of the attack state that he had refused such protection.[1][9]

The immediate antecedent cited by the PFLP was Israel's killing of its secretary-general, Abu Ali Mustafa, in Ramallah on August 27, 2001.[10][3] Israeli forces killed Mustafa with a missile strike on his office; civilians also inhabited the building in which the office was located.[11] The United States criticized the killing and Israel's policy of targeted killings.[11] Ahmad Sa'adat succeeded Mustafa as the PFLP's leader and subsequently became a central figure in the detention arrangements and legal disputes arising from Ze'evi's assassination.[12][5]

The wider diplomatic setting included an American effort to secure a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Authority while the United States was conducting its war in Afghanistan.[2] The killing thus took place while Washington was pressing both sides toward a cessation of violence, rather than during an absence of diplomatic engagement.[2] The PFLP later publicly connected its attack to Mustafa's death, presenting the assassination as revenge; that explanation was the organization's declared rationale for the killing.[10][3]

On the morning of October 17, 2001, Ze'evi and his wife, Yael, were staying at Jerusalem's Hyatt Hotel, subsequently known as the Dan Jerusalem Hotel.[9][1] The hotel was on Mount Scopus, near Hebrew University, and accounts also locate the killing in East Jerusalem.[13][14] Ze'evi ate breakfast with his wife before returning toward his room on the eighth floor, where the attackers were waiting near the elevator.[1][15]

The PFLP had tracked Ze'evi's movements and daily routine before the attack.[9] Hamdi Quran checked the hotel's dining room at approximately 6:00 a.m.; Ze'evi and his wife arrived about 20 minutes later.[9] Shortly after 6:50 a.m., Ze'evi left breakfast and headed back toward his room.[9] He was unarmed and without a bodyguard at the time, despite the heightened security precautions being taken for ministers.[1]

In his subsequent court account, Quran said that PFLP member Majdi Rimawi had instructed him to kill Ze'evi.[15] Quran and Basel al-Asmar took positions near the elevator on the eighth floor and attacked as Ze'evi left the elevator and walked toward his room.[15] The shooting occurred near the entrance to room 816 at about 7:00 a.m.[1] Three shots were fired at point-blank range, striking Ze'evi in the head and neck; Quran's court account likewise described three shots to the head.[1][15]

Yael found her husband moments after the shooting and called the police and the Magen David Adom ambulance service.[1] Ze'evi was taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, where he died of his wounds and was pronounced dead at 10:00 a.m.[1] The attack therefore began as an ambush outside his hotel room and ended with his death in hospital later that morning.[1]

The attackers escaped before security forces arrived.[1] In the initial investigation, police believed that one or two assailants might have carried out the shooting, but the police chief emphasized that neither the number of attackers nor the weapon used had yet been established.[1] Israeli security officials subsequently reported that the assailants had fled toward Palestinian Authority-controlled territory, specifically Ramallah.[2] Later investigations and court proceedings addressed a broader network of gunmen, planners, suppliers, and people who assisted their movements.[16][17]

The PFLP claimed responsibility shortly after the attack.[2] The U.S. State Department later characterized the killing as a PFLP assassination and described retaliation for Mustafa's killing as the purported motive.[10] Senior PFLP official Rabah Muhana also linked the selection of Ze'evi as a target to his far-right political views.[9] These statements identified the organization's publicly stated reasons for choosing and killing the minister, rather than an independently established motive.[2][9]

The subsequent case against Majdi al-Rimawi described preparations extending beyond the gunmen's positions outside the elevator. A court found that he recruited the gunmen, supplied weapons and forged identity documents, and provided a photograph of Ze'evi so the attackers could identify him.[16] Another report recorded that he supplied a fake Israeli identification document and information about the hotel's layout.[4]

The Knesset postponed its regular agenda for a special memorial session, which opened with a minute of silence.[18] Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened the security-political cabinet to consider a response and suspended diplomatic contacts with the Palestinians.[18] Six other parliamentarians who had been poised to leave the governing coalition withdrew their resignations after the killing.[2] The immediate political consequences thus included both a public memorial in parliament and a change in the coalition calculations that had surrounded Ze'evi's resignation.[2][18]

Sharon said the assassination had created a new situation and assigned responsibility to Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, arguing that the Authority had failed to take meaningful measures against terrorism.[18] At the Knesset memorial ceremony, he said Arafat had “done nothing serious against terror.”[2] Foreign Minister Shimon Peres described the killing as a change in magnitude and said Israel would not remain indifferent.[18] These were the government's public responses to the assassination, including its demand for action against those responsible.[18]

Meretz leader Yossi Sarid, whose politics were at the opposite end of the spectrum from Ze'evi's, also called for decisive Palestinian Authority action.[2] He declared: “The murder of Rechavam Ze'evi puts the Palestinian Authority to a harsh test,” and urged sharp measures against the killers.[2] The parliamentary response therefore included condemnation and demands for arrests from a prominent political opponent of the murdered minister as well as from members of the government.[2]

President George W. Bush condemned the assassination, while Secretary of State Colin Powell called Sharon to express condolences and reportedly urged restraint.[2] In an assessment of the American response, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs describes Washington as calling for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian-controlled areas while Bush also urged Arafat to bring the killer to justice and arrest those threatening Israeli citizens.[19] These American responses accompanied the existing effort to advance a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.[2]

Israel sent troops into six Palestinian cities in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — in response to the assassination.[19] Israel also demanded that the Palestinian Authority arrest those responsible and surrender them for trial.[3] On December 22, 2001, Israel confined Arafat to his Ramallah office until he arrested Ze'evi's killers.[20] The search for the perpetrators consequently became intertwined with Israeli military operations and direct pressure on the Palestinian Authority leadership.[3][19]

After the assassination, the Palestinian National Security Council banned the PFLP's military wing in the territories under occupation.[3] By the end of 2001, the Palestinian Authority had also arrested and reportedly continued to hold two brothers of suspects in the killing.[14] Their detention formed part of a broader practice in which Palestinian security forces detained relatives of alleged security offenders or placed them under house arrest.[14]

Palestinian Authority security forces arrested Sa'adat in mid-January 2002 during a crackdown on Palestinian terrorism.[11] Israel accused him of planning the assassination.[5] Five PFLP members, including Sa'adat, were subsequently detained and held in Arafat's compound during Israel's April 2002 siege.[3]

In April 2002, a Palestinian military field court convicted Hamdi Qar'an, Bassel al-Asmar, Majdi al-Rimawi, and 'Ahed Abu Ghalma on charges relating to Ze'evi's killing.[3] Under a deal ending the siege, the convicted men were transferred to a prison in Jericho, where American and British officials monitored their detention.[3]

Sa'adat was also transferred to Jericho, although at that stage he had not been charged or tried.[3] In June 2002, the Palestinian High Court in Gaza ordered his release, but the Palestinian Cabinet continued to hold him.[3] The arrangement therefore covered both men convicted in connection with the assassination and the PFLP leader whose release had been ordered by a Palestinian court.[3]

On March 14, 2006, the American and British monitors left the prison, and Israeli forces surrounded the compound amid concern over the prospect of Sa'adat's release.[21] Sa'adat and the other detainees were taken into Israeli custody after the siege.[21]

The siege lasted nine hours, after which Sa'adat and five other detainees surrendered and were handed over to Israeli soldiers.[21] Three Palestinians died during the operation.[21] Palestinian reports described the surrender as part of an international agreement, while the Israeli military said it had not coordinated the capture with Britain or the United States.[21]

The transfer changed the setting for the subsequent legal proceedings: the men were no longer being held in a Palestinian prison under foreign monitoring.[21] A 2006 account recorded that Sa'adat, who had been imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority over involvement in the assassination, was awaiting trial after his seizure by Israeli forces.[22] The later prosecutions produced separate outcomes for the operational participants and for Sa'adat, whose eventual conviction concerned his leadership of a terrorist organization rather than Ze'evi's murder.[4][5]

Hamdi Quran pleaded guilty in 2007 and recounted his role in the hotel attack in court, including the instructions he received from Majdi Rimawi and the positions taken near the eighth-floor elevator.[15] He was later sentenced to two life sentences plus 100 years.[9] His account connected the gunmen's actions at the hotel to the preparations and directions supplied by the PFLP organizers.[15]

On July 29, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court convicted Majdi al-Rimawi for his role in planning the assassination.[16] The court found that he had supplied the gunmen with identification material and information needed to recognize Ze'evi and navigate the hotel.[4] His assistance included a photograph of the minister, false identity documents, hotel-layout information, and other support for the operation.[4] He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 80 years, with the terms to be served consecutively.[4]

Al-Rimawi's convictions extended beyond the assassination itself.[16] He was also convicted of attempted murders, membership in a terrorist organization, and planning shooting attacks against Israeli civilians.[16] The findings concerning Ze'evi's killing encompassed recruiting the gunmen, providing weapons and forged documents, and helping them identify their target.[16] His sentence thus followed a case addressing both the planning of the assassination and additional terrorist offenses.[16][4]

Ahad Olma, identified as commander of the PFLP's military wing, was convicted of planning and organizing the murder and providing a safe haven for the killers.[23] The Jerusalem District Court sentenced him to life imprisonment plus five years.[23] He denied involvement during the trial.[23] His conviction addressed organizational preparation and assistance to the perpetrators rather than solely the act of firing the shots at the hotel.[23]

In 2010, Israel's Supreme Court unanimously rejected appeals by Muhammad Rimawi, convicted of Ze'evi's murder, and Salah Alawi, convicted of assisting it.[17] Rimawi received a life sentence, while Alawi received 12 years.[17] The court found that Rimawi knew the main details of the plan, understood his significant role in carrying it out, and actively participated in preparations.[17] It found that Alawi lodged Rimawi on the night before the murder and drove him along routes that bypassed security-force checkpoints.[17]

Sa'adat's prosecution had a different outcome.[5] Israeli authorities determined that there was insufficient evidence to try him for Ze'evi's murder and pursued security-offense charges instead.[5] In 2008, a military court sentenced him to 30 years for heading an illegal terrorist organization.[5] That sentence was not a murder conviction and should be distinguished from the convictions of participants whose responsibility for preparing, carrying out, or assisting the assassination was established in the separate cases.[5][4]

Ze'evi's assassination was the first killing of an Israeli cabinet minister by Palestinian terrorists since Israel's establishment.[2][9] It was also reported as the first assassination of an Israeli government official since Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.[9] Those distinctions made the murder significant beyond the loss of an individual minister: the victim was a serving member of the government targeted in his hotel during his morning routine.[9][1]

The immediate memorial session in the Knesset brought together political figures who had disagreed sharply with Ze'evi.[2][18] Sarid's demand that the Palestinian Authority act against the killers, alongside Sharon's and Peres's statements, illustrated the breadth of the public political response.[2][18] The episode also interrupted the coalition departures that had accompanied Ze'evi's own resignation, as six parliamentarians reversed their decisions to leave after the murder.[2]

The assassination's aftermath extended across several distinct stages: demands for arrests, detention in the Muqata'a, Palestinian military proceedings, detention under American and British monitoring in Jericho, and the Israeli operation of March 2006.[3][21] The 2008 sentencing of organizers and the Supreme Court's 2010 appeal decisions show that the legal consequences continued for years after the attack.[4][17] The historical record therefore includes both the events of October 17 and the longer pursuit of those who prepared, carried out, or assisted the killing.[15][17]

The PFLP's claim of responsibility is distinct from disputes over the responsibility of particular leaders.[2][5] Israel accused Sa'adat of ordering the assassination, but he denied the accusation, and Israeli authorities ultimately found insufficient evidence to prosecute him for the murder.[5] Similarly, Sharon's attribution of responsibility to Arafat was a political accusation accompanying demands for action against terrorism, not the outcome of the criminal proceedings described above.[18][5]

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs argues that Palestinian promises to arrest the killers and outlaw armed groups were not followed by a systematic crackdown, and alleges that Palestinian Authority security personnel helped smuggle one killer into an area under full Palestinian control.[24] These are the analysis's claims about the Authority's conduct, rather than findings from the murder trials.[24] Amnesty International characterized the Palestinian military proceedings as falling far short of international fair-trial standards.[3]