Key facts
- Kozo Okamoto, a Japanese militant involved in the 1972 Lod Airport attack, died in Beirut at age 78.
- The attack, carried out by the Japanese Red Army, killed 26 people and injured 78.
- Okamoto was captured, imprisoned, and later released in a prisoner exchange, eventually finding asylum in Lebanon.
- He was known to Palestinians as Ahmad al-Yabani and seen as a symbol of solidarity with their cause.
Kozo Okamoto, a Japanese leftist militant who participated in the deadly 1972 Lod Airport attack, has died in Beirut at the age of 78. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which had protected Okamoto during his years in Lebanon, announced his death on Thursday, citing a prolonged illness. Known to Palestinians as Ahmad al-Yabani, or Ahmad the Japanese, Okamoto rarely appeared publicly but remained a symbol of international solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Okamoto, along with two other members of the Japanese Red Army, carried out the attack on Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion Airport) on May 30, 1972. The three men opened fire after arriving on a flight from Europe, killing 26 people, including 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico and eight Israelis. Okamoto's two comrades died during the operation, while he was wounded and captured by Israeli forces.
An Israeli court sentenced Okamoto to life imprisonment. He was released in 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange with Palestinian resistance groups after serving 12 years, much of it in solitary confinement. He later moved to Lebanon and received political asylum. In 1997, Lebanese authorities arrested him and four other Japanese nationals over their immigration status. While the other four were returned to Japan in 2000, Lebanon repeatedly rejected Japanese extradition requests for Okamoto. During his Lebanese trial, Okamoto described himself as an "Arab resistance fighter."
He made a rare public appearance in May 2022 at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Lod attack. The Japanese Red Army, an internationalist far-left group closely connected to the Palestinian struggle, carried out several overseas operations before disbanding. Okamoto remained in Lebanon until his death.