Rome. A nominally independent Israeli group, but in fact linked to the Mossad, assassinated the PLO representative in Rome, Wael Zwaiter, in Piazza Annibaliano (Trieste district). After the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics (September 1972), Golda Meir and her staff planned a series of targeted assassinations of specific individuals. The goal was, on the one hand, to weaken the PLO, but above all to instill terror in all those who had embraced the cause of pro-Palestinian terrorism. Zwaiter was also on the list of those to be eliminated, and he was the first to fall at the hands of Israeli agents. The media coverage was widespread, and soon other important PLO members would be killed, in Europe and Lebanon. The operation, known as the “Wrath of God,” would conclude in 1979 with the spectacular killing in Lebanon of Ali Hassan Salameh, considered the main architect of the Munich Massacre, Arafat’s cousin and head of his elite group of bodyguards.
