Plane Liberated; Passengers Safe Army Unit Uses Ruse to Wrest Plane from Hijackers; Two Terrorists K

An Israeli Army unit, employing a ruse, seized control of the hijacked Sabena jet at Lydda Airport early this afternoon, liberated its 90 passengers and 10 crew members and killed two of the four Arab terrorists who had held them hostage for 24 hours and threatened to blow up the plane. At least three passengers were wounded by ricocheting bullets during the brief but fierce gun battle inside the airliner and have been hospitalized. The two other terrorists, both women, were captured. One was seriously wounded in the fray.

The Israeli Army acted swiftly after a night and morning of fruitless negotiations with the terrorists who demanded that Israel free 300 terrorists–later reduced to 100–held in Israeli jails in exchange for the hostages. Israeli authorities flatly refused to make a deal but fear for the safety of the hostages kept the negotiations going for hours as plans were laid to overpower the terrorists.

Those plans bore the stamp of Israel’s top military leadership including Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Army Chief of Staff Gen. David Elazar who arrived at Lydda Airport shortly after the Belgian Boeing 707 landed at 7 p.m. local time yesterday, its passengers and crew held at gunpoint by the terrorists.

Israeli soldiers gained entry to the big jet disguised as El Al repairmen after the terrorists, described by one witness as more nervous than their captives, were convinced that Israel would give in to their demands and permit them to fly the plane to Cairo.

The disguised soldiers pulled out weapons and commenced firing as soon as they were in the plane. The terrorists returned the fire but their leader, Kamal Rifaai, was killed instantly and the other male terrorist fell dead a few moments later. One female terrorist, who had her hand on the pin of a hand grenade, surrendered and carefully handed the grenade to her captors.

CABINET REJECTED TERRORISTS’ THREATS

At a press conference afterwards, Transport Minister Shimon Peres hailed the “masterful skill, courage and patience” of Dayan who conducted the entire operation. He also had praise for Elazar and the pilot of the Belgian jet, Capt. Reginald Levy, a British veteran of the RAF in World War II.

During the night Capt. Levy had been permitted by the terrorists to leave the aircraft to serve as a messenger between them and the Israeli authorities. At one point, the pilot reported that the terrorists were becoming desperate and would carry out their threat. He said they had explosives planted all over the plane. It was Capt. Levy who escorted the disguised soldiers aboard the airliner at considerable personal risk.

In a statement broadcast tonight by radio, Premier Golda Meir disclosed that the Cabinet which met in emergency session today had decided unanimously not to give in to terrorist threats and blackmail. She said that no foreign bodies or institutions shared responsibility for the decision to capture the airliner.

It was learned that a Belgian Foreign Ministry official who arrived here early this morning to participate in efforts to solve the problem, made no request that Israel give in to the hijackers’ demands. The official asked, on behalf of his government, only that Israel take all possible measures to protect the lives involved.

LESSON FOR OTHER NATIONS

At a press conference at Lydda Airport after the operation, Elazar said that if every nation handled hijackers the way the Israelis did, the hijacking of planes would have been discontinued long ago. He said, “We could not permit ourselves the shame of having a plane hijacked over Israel and in Israel.”

The Sabena jet was seized yesterday shortly after it took off from Vienna on the final leg of a Brussels-Tel Aviv flight. About 45 of the 90 passengers were Israelis and Jews of other nationalities whose families were waiting for them at Lydda. When the plane landed it was shunted to a side runway where it was bathed in floodlights and surrounded by ambulances, fire fighting equipment, soldiers and police. The terrorists made their demands via radio to the airport control tower. The negotiations were conducted in English and Arabic.

The terrorists were members of the Palestinian Black September organization which takes its name from the Jordanian civil war in Sept. 1970. The group was responsible for the assassination of Jordanian Premier Wafsiel Tal in Cairo last Nov. to “avenge the death of Palestinians” in the civil war. It was not known whether the terrorists boarded the plane at Brussels or Vienna.