19 Facts About Palestinian fedayeen

Palestinian fedayeen are militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people.

The ideology of the Palestinian fedayeen was mainly left-wing nationalist, socialist or communist, and their proclaimed purpose was to defeat Zionism, claim Palestine and establish it as "a secular, democratic, nonsectarian state".

Palestinian fedayeen groups were united under the umbrella the Palestine Liberation Organization after the defeat of the Arab armies in the 1967 Six-Day War, though each group retained its own leader and independent armed forces.

Gradually, they developed into violent robbery and deliberate 'terrorist' attacks as Palestinian fedayeen replaced the 'innocent' refugees as the perpetrators.

Some believe Palestinian fedayeen attacks contributed to the outbreak of the Suez Crisis; they were cited by Israel as the reason for undertaking the 1956 Sinai Campaign.

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Sixty-six were killed in screening operations in the area; while a US diplomat estimated that of the 500 Palestinian fedayeen captured by the Israeli Defense Forces, "about 30" were killed.

Palestinian fedayeen criticism of the poor performance of the Arab Legion was an insult to both the King and the regime.

Syrian troops intervened to support the Palestinian fedayeen, but were turned back by Jordanian armour and Israeli army overflights.

On 11 March 1978, twelve Palestinian fedayeen led by Dalal Mughrabi infiltrated Israel from the sea and hijacked a bus along the coastal highway, killing 38 civilians in the ensuing gunfight between them and police.

Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon and its siege and constant shelling of the capital Beirut in the 1982 Lebanon War, eventually forced the Palestinian fedayeen to accept an internationally brokered agreement that moved them out of Lebanon to different places in the Arab world.

On 25 November 1987, PFLP-GC launched an attack, in which two Palestinian fedayeen infiltrated northern Israel from an undisclosed Syrian-controlled area in southern Lebanon with hang gliders.

Those Palestinian groups affiliated with the PLO and based outside of historic Palestine, such as rebels within Fatah and the PFLP-GC, used the lack of fedayeen operations as their main weapon of criticism against the PLO leadership at the time.

The fedayeen lost their position as a political force and the secular nationalist movement that had represented the first generation of the Palestinian resistance became instead a symbolic, cultural force that was seen by some as having failed in its duties.

Objectives of the Palestinian fedayeen were articulated in the statements and literature they produced, which were consistent with reference to the aim of destroying Zionism.

Bard O'Neill wrote that the Palestinian fedayeen attempted to study and borrow from all of the revolutionary models available, but that their publications and statements show a particular affinity for the Cuban, Algerian, Vietnamese, and Chinese experiences.

Until 1968, Palestinian fedayeen tactics consisted largely of hit-and-run raids on Israeli military targets.

IDFs counterinsurgency tactics, which from 1967 onwards regularly included the use of home demolitions, curfews, deportations, and other forms of collective punishment, effectively precluded the ability of the Palestinian fedayeen to create internal bases from which to wage "a people's war".

The Palestinian fedayeen were compelled to establish external bases, resulting in frictions with their host countries which led to conflicts, diverting them from their primary objective of "bleeding Israel".

Several Palestinian fedayeen groups maintained contacts with a number of other guerrilla groups worldwide.