Ma?a Lot

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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.

SEE ALSO Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

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