Ma?a Lot
MAʿA LOT
An urban community in Upper Galilee, Israel, Maʿa lot was founded in 1956 to replace two temporary settlements of mostly North African Jewish immigrants. Located about 6 miles (10 km) south of the border with Lebanon, Maʿa lot had a population of approximately 20,000 in 2002. It was the site of a terrorist attack on 15 May 1974, when three members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, disguised in Israeli uniforms, took control of a Maʿa lot school building, where a group of ninety children on a field trip were sleeping on the floor. Some of the children were killed on the spot, and some escaped by jumping out a window. The terrorists held the remaining children hostage, threatening to kill them if demands for the release of Arab guerrillas from Israeli prisons were not met by 6:00 P.M. At 5:45 P.M. a unit of the Israeli army's Golani Brigade stormed the building, killing the three terrorists. Sixteen children were killed and seventy were wounded.