The scene told its own story. At Beirut International Airport on the morning of 29 December 1968, burnt-out airliner hulks littered the main parking aprons, with other wrecked airframes near the hangars. It was just a few hours since the Israeli Defence Force had launched a surprise commando attack, its objective to respond to a pair of terrorist hijackings, its target parked aircraft belonging to Arab carriers. From the Israeli perspective, the mission was accomplished. The underlying tensions went back a long way. Lebanon and Israel had been on a war footing since May 1948, when Israel was established as an independent country and Lebanon joined the other Arab nations in opposing the newly formed Jewish state. During the 1960s Beirut, the Lebanese capital, became a major centre of terrorist activity. With a substantial Palestinian exile minority already living in Lebanon, 1967's Arab-Israeli Six-Day War triggered a surge in support for Palestine's cause, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) gained a foothold both there and in Jordan.
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