and returned to Palestine to head the group. In the fall of 1917, Sarah
Aaronsohn was arrested by Turkish military authorities, who tortured
her for three days in an attempt to obtain information about the group.
She bravely withstood the torture even when they hung her by her
hands, whipped the soles of her feet, placed scorching eggs under her
armpits and between her thighs, and pulled out her fingernails. Due to
the torture and to her determination not to reveal secret information
about NILI, Sarah Aaronsohn committed suicide by shooting herself.ABU IYAD.SeeKHALAF, SALAH.ABU JIHAD (1935–1988).The nom de guerre of Khalil el-Wazir. He was
born in mandatory Palestine, and after the establishment of
the State of Israel in 1948 he fled with his parents to Egypt, where he
spent his youth. In 1954 he was arrested in Egypt for laying mines
in the Gaza Strip. The next year, he infiltrated into Israel from the
Egyptian border and attacked Israeli water installations. In 1959 he met
Yasser Arafat and joined his group. Abu Jihad became one of
the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leaders, and after the
Peace of Galilee operation in 1982, he fled with Arafat to Tunisia. The
entire Israeli intelligence community—the Mossad, the Israeli Secu-
rity Agency, and Military Intelligence—kept close watch on his
movements. He was described by the Israeli intelligence community as
highly intelligent, with a keen analytical mind, and a good organizer.
Abu Jihad was likewise known to Israeli intelligence as the great con-
ciliator in the PLO between Arafat and his violent rivals. In 1988 the Is-
raeli inner cabinet (the 10 leading ministers out of the full cabinet of 25
ministers), in a no-vote procedure, resolved to have Abu Jihad assassi-
nated in Tunisia, nearly 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away from Is-
rael. The immediate reason for the decision was to raise the morale of
Israelis in the difficult days of the Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s.
In a brilliantly planned mission, one of the most elaborate ever, based
on excellent intelligence, Abu Jihad was assassinated on 6 April 1988.
Because of Tunisia’s long distance from Israel, it was decided to
use the Israel Air Force’s Boeing 707 and a flying command post. Ma-
jor General Ehud Barak, then deputy chief of the General Staff, com-
manded the entire operation from that aircraft, which was equipped
with a highly sophisticated communications systems, somewhat sim-2•ABU IYAD06-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 2