Savoy Hotel Attack

The attack took place amid a period in which Israel faced a series of terrorist attacks against civilian targets. A retrospective account of the Eighth Knesset (1973–1977) places the Savoy incident alongside attacks at Ma’alot, Nahariya, Kiryat Shemona, and other locations, though it supplies no specific date or casualty count for the Savoy operation.[8] A 2022 account in the Israel Police Heritage House journal likewise groups the hotel takeover with the Ma’alot disaster as attacks on the civilian home front that preceded a change in the allocation of internal-security responsibilities.[9]

Accounts link the operation to Palestinian organizations, but they do not offer one uniform description of responsibility or planning. The U.S. Embassy cable records that Israeli officials attributed the attack to Fatah and connected responsibility to Yasser Arafat; the cable reports those Israeli statements rather than establishing command responsibility independently.[10] The Center for Israel Education describes an eight-man Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) raid planned by Abu Nidal, while the Israeli Ministry of Defense Archives calls it a PLO operation.[5][3] Ynet identifies Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir, also known as Abu Jihad, as the person who sent the attackers and describes the operation as revenge for Israel’s 1973 Operation Spring of Youth in Lebanon.[4]

Fatah statements quoted in later reports provide a separate account of the operation’s organization and motive. A Fatah post quoted by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) identified the attackers as members of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement–Fatah and named Khalil Al-Wazir (“Abu Jihad”) as the operation’s supervisor; it described the raid as retaliation for the “Martyrs of Verdun.”[11] In PMW’s account, the reference was to an Israeli operation against PLO targets in Beirut and Sidon on April 10, 1973, in which Kamal Adwan, Kamal Nasser, and Abu Yusuf Al-Najjar were killed.[11] These statements document the framing used by Fatah, rather than independently verifying the chain of command or motive.

Some later commentary places the attack in a broader operational context. A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs article describes the attackers as belonging to a Palestinian organization based outside Israel and operating from a safe haven in Lebanon; it says the organization had undergone months of specialized training and possessed substantial prior intelligence, but does not name the organization or provide a detailed account of the raid.[12] The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) places the incident in a wider history of maritime operations, reporting that Israeli Navy missile ships intercepted three PLO “mother ships” between 1973 and 1982.[13]

The attack unfolded over the night of March 5–6, 1975, although sources give several different date formulations. The U.S. Department of State account says eight PLO terrorists arrived secretly by boat on a Tel Aviv beach on the night of March 5, entered the Savoy Hotel, and took guests hostage; Israeli forces stormed the hotel on the morning of March 6.[2] The Ministry of Defense Archives page is internally inconsistent: its heading gives March 5–6, while its body dates the operation to March 4–5; the Ministry’s Yizkor memorial account says the landing occurred late on March 5.[5][6] Ynet describes the boats as reaching Tel Aviv late on March 6, while N12 dates the landing to March 5.[4][14] The sources do not resolve these differences, so the March 5–6 formulation best captures the broadest and most frequently reported overnight sequence.

Descriptions of the landing and the attackers’ route also vary. The State Department account and the Ministry of Defense Archives describe eight attackers arriving by boat.[2][5] The Ministry’s Yizkor account instead says six men arrived in an inflatable boat south of Allenby Street, ran toward buildings on Geula Street, tried unsuccessfully to break into a cinema, and then entered the hotel.[6] Ynet reports two dinghy boats carrying two attacking units; after a police patrol spotted them and opened fire, one boat carrying weapons exploded, and the attackers reached the three-story hotel on Geula Street.[4] N12 describes eight Fatah attackers landing in two rubber boats, encountering a police patrol, and then going to the hotel after a gun battle.[14]

Once inside, the attackers took hotel guests hostage. The Ministry’s memorial account says they killed two Jewish women tourists, gathered other guests in a room, and made demands to security officials.[6] Other accounts say the attackers killed the receptionist before taking guests hostage, and report a demand that Israel release 20 prisoners within four hours, with threats against the hostages if it was not met.[14] The Center for Israel Education says the attackers demanded the release of Palestinians held by Israel.[3] A Jerusalem Post account adds that they requested the presence of ambassadors from several European countries to negotiate, and says none came and the demands were not met.[15]

Descriptions of the demands are not uniform. One 2009 Ynet opinion article says the hostage-takers demanded to be flown to Damascus with the hostages, the French ambassador in Israel, and ten prisoners.[16] A Ynet report on recordings made during the siege describes a demand for the French ambassador to come and discuss the attackers’ departure; in one exchange, hostage Kochava Levy relayed that they would allow the ambassador and a translator to come upstairs unharmed.[17] The available accounts may describe different parts or formulations of the demands, but they do not reconcile them.

Israeli negotiators communicated with the attackers during the hours before the assault. A declassified recording described by Ynet captures negotiator Rubi Peled speaking by telephone with Levy, who was translating for the attackers. Levy relayed their statement that they wanted to live in peace with Israelis and would be satisfied if allowed to leave; Peled replied that the plan was to keep the hostages safe.[17] The report also describes Levy relaying the proposal for the French ambassador and a translator, while Peled pressed for information about wounded hostages and asked the attackers to communicate that information directly.[17]

Levy’s role went beyond translation. She appealed to the attackers to release wounded hostage Karol Feldman; after they initially refused, fearing Israeli snipers, she persuaded them to let her take him out. She dragged Feldman, who was twice her size, to the hotel entrance for medical help, an action reported as saving his life.[7] A recollection preserved by the American Jewish Archives also credits Levy with negotiating, bandaging wounded people, pulling an injured hostage out, and returning to the building to continue negotiations.[18] The Jerusalem Post reports that she gave Israeli authorities information about the attackers’ location inside the hotel, which assisted the raid.[15]

A local soldier was among the first to respond. Moshe Deutschmann, a Golani Brigade soldier home on leave, heard gunfire, took his personal weapon, and went to the scene; he was fatally wounded in a shootout with an attacker.[3][4] The Center for Israel Education says Deutschmann was the first to respond and was mortally wounded.[3] Ynet reports that he later died in hospital and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service.[4]

After hours of negotiations, Israeli forces launched an assault in the early morning. The Ministry of Defense’s Yizkor account places the attempt to free the hostages at about 5 a.m.; the State Department account says Israeli forces stormed the hotel on the morning of March 6.[2][6] Other accounts describe Sayeret Matkal entering after roughly six hours of negotiations, with four teams involved in the operation.[14][19] The Ministry of Defense Archives says the attackers were confronted by Sayeret Matkal, seven were killed, and the eighth captured.[5]

The assault involved fierce fighting and explosions inside the hotel. The Yizkor account says the attackers detonated the room, killing six more people—five guests and a hotel employee—after two tourists had already been killed.[6] N12 and Ynet report that explosives detonated in the room where hostages were held and damaged or blew up part of the upper floor.[14][17] The released recording also captured the gunfire and explosions during the breach.[17]

Accounts identify senior officers who took part in the rescue. According to the Center for Israel Education, former Sayeret Matkal commander Uzi Yairi led the commando unit’s assault; he had served in a senior intelligence post since the 1973 Yom Kippur War and volunteered to join the response because of his Sayeret Matkal experience.[3] Yairi had become Sayeret Matkal’s commander shortly before the June 1967 war, after studying economics and geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[3] Ynet identifies the other soldiers killed as Sayeret Matkal soldier Itamar Ben David and former unit commander Yairi, alongside Deutschmann, who had gone to the scene on his own initiative.[4]

The assault freed five hostages alive, according to the Ministry of Defense Archives and the Center for Israel Education; the latter says seven attackers were killed and the eighth captured.[5][3] The captured attacker was later tried and convicted, then released in a prisoner exchange in 1985, according to The Times of Israel.[7]

Several detailed later accounts report an overall toll of 11 Israelis killed: eight civilian hostages and three soldiers. The Center for Israel Education gives that breakdown, while the Ministry of Defense’s Yizkor memorial describes eight civilian deaths through its account of two women killed on entry and six people killed when the hostage room was detonated.[3][6] Seven attackers were killed and the eighth captured, according to the Ministry of Defense Archives and the Center for Israel Education.[5][3]

The sources nevertheless contain substantial discrepancies in casualty figures. A State Department document reports five hostages and three Israeli soldiers killed, while the Ministry of Defense Archives says five hostages were killed and five freed.[2][5] One Times of Israel account gives seven civilian hostages killed and three soldiers, whereas another gives eight civilians and three soldiers.[20][7] A Mako account reports eight hostages and two Israeli fighters killed; a 2009 Ynet opinion article gives seven hostages, two soldiers in the assault force, and six attackers killed, without explaining the fate of the other two attackers.[16][19]

Other summaries are still further apart. A Jewish Virtual Library summary gives four deaths without a breakdown, while CAMERA reports three soldiers, three civilians, and seven attackers killed.[21][22] An NGO Monitor footnote says one Israeli officer and five hostages were killed in the counter-operation, without giving a total that includes the attackers.[23] A PMW report records both an 11-fatality account—eight hostages and three soldiers—and quoted Palestinian accounts stating that 10 Israelis were killed, without reconciling the difference.[24] A Fatah video reproduced in another PMW report claims 11 people were killed and 20 wounded.[25] PMW also quotes a Fatah post claiming that approximately 100 military personnel and civilians were killed and wounded, and marks that claim as inaccurate, giving the death toll as 11.[11] Because the figures come from accounts with differing definitions and detail, the article’s main toll follows the more fully specified later accounts while noting the discrepancies here.

The attack prompted changes in the organization of internal security. Government Decision 411, dated April 1, 1975, formally transferred responsibility for such internal-security cases to the police, according to the Israel Police Heritage House journal. The account says the police were already located in population centers and that the change was intended to reduce the burden on the IDF; it describes the decision as following a series of attacks on the civilian home front, including Ma’alot and the Savoy takeover.[9]

The operation also figured in debate over Israel’s response to hostage-taking. The U.S. Embassy cable reports that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin reiterated Israel’s decision not to negotiate with terrorists. It records Defense Minister Shimon Peres arguing that the attack reinforced Israel’s view that Fatah was not a partner for negotiations, and that many Israeli commentators considered the hostage operation a departure from Fatah’s recent avoidance of such operations.[10] In a later Knesset statement, Rabin included the Savoy case among instances in which the government used a military option rather than capitulating; he presented that policy as conditional, saying negotiation and a price could be unavoidable when no military option existed.[26]

The United States publicly condemned the attack. In a statement dated March 6, 1975, President Gerald Ford deplored the loss of innocent lives and offered sympathy to the bereaved families.[27] In a letter to Rabin, Ford said the attack should not disrupt ongoing peace efforts, expressed shared grief, and stated that the United States was determined to work toward peace that would put an end to such acts.[2] A later State Department editorial note says the letter was sourced from the Kissinger Papers and records that a handwritten notation indicated delivery by courier to Minister Shalev at 7 p.m.[2]

The attack was also represented in Palestinian political and media accounts in ways that later became part of disputes over its commemoration. A contemporary Palestinian publication discussed in a Berman Jewish Policy Archive report praised the raid and framed it as a message about peace negotiations and Palestinian rights; the report presents that as the publication’s political framing, not as a neutral account of the attackers’ aims.[28] A Fatah video reproduced by PMW displayed the words “Fatah was here – Savoy” and called the attackers “Martyrs” and “heroes of the Savoy operation.”[25] A 2019 Fatah post quoted by PMW named Abu Jihad as supervisor and described the attack as retaliation for the “Martyrs of Verdun.”[11] MEMRI later quoted a 2020 passage from the Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that listed the Savoy takeover among attacks planned by Abu Jihad and gave the death toll as 11 Israelis.[29]

The Savoy attack has been remembered both as a deadly hostage crisis and as a test of Israel’s willingness to use force to rescue captives. In a later Knesset statement, Defense Minister Rabin invoked the incident as an example of a case in which a government with a military option had acted rather than capitulating, while acknowledging that the decision would differ where no such option existed.[26] The U.S. Embassy cable similarly records Rabin’s refusal to negotiate with terrorists and Peres’s view that the attack strengthened Israel’s judgment that Fatah was not a negotiating partner.[10]

Uzi Yairi’s death became a focus of memorial accounts of the operation. At Yairi’s funeral, IDF Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur said: “Uzi Yairi could not resist the impulse to share the yoke. I saw him at the briefing before the battle, and I sensed his determination to go into the hotel.”[3] The Center for Israel Education describes Yairi as a senior intelligence figure who volunteered to join the rescue because of his experience in Sayeret Matkal.[3] The Ministry of Defense maintains a memorial account of the operation, and a Yizkor monument is located at the hotel, at Geula Street 5 in Tel Aviv.[6]

Kochava Levy’s role has also received renewed attention. Levy was a 31-year-old mother held hostage in the hotel; her Arabic enabled her to relay messages between the attackers and Israeli negotiators, and she helped secure the release of a wounded hostage.[7] Her negotiation and assistance were recorded in recollections and later reporting, but for years her actions were overshadowed by a mistaken public identification. The Times of Israel reports that media accounts called her a prostitute after reports that she had been staying at the hotel with a man who was not her husband; the identification confused her with another Tel Aviv woman of the same name.[7] Levy sued Time magazine after it described her as “a petite, black-haired prostitute who had ducked into the Savoy earlier to avoid a police roundup,” and won.[7]

Levy died in 2019, aged 75, and was buried in Hadera, according to Ynet and The Times of Israel.[7][30] The documentary Savoy drew on her diaries and archival materials to tell her story; accounts describe the film as combining reenactments, archival footage, recordings secretly made during the siege, and narration based on her journals.[7][15] The tapes, which captured portions of the siege and the negotiations, were preserved by an Israeli amateur radio listener living in Málaga, Spain, rather than in the IDF archive. He had been walking in Tel Aviv with recording equipment, came upon the hotel, lay nearby, and raised his microphone to record what he could hear; former members of the unit later recognized the recordings as authentic, and they were publicly released 40 years after the attack.[17]

The available record remains uneven. Official archival and memorial accounts differ on the exact date and the size of the landing force.[5][6] Later reports also provide inconsistent descriptions of the demands and casualty totals.[14][16] A 2009 Ynet opinion article goes beyond reporting and interprets the negotiations as fictitious, characterizes the rescue as a failure, and argues that Sayeret Matkal was not then trained for this type of hostage rescue; these are the author’s assessments, not conclusions shared by all the sources.[16] PMW reports also quote Fatah accounts that describe the attack in celebratory terms and attribute its planning to Abu Jihad.[11][25] The State Department cable separately records Israeli attribution to Fatah and Arafat.[10] Those attributions and commemorative claims should be distinguished from the detailed operational accounts and from independently established facts.