Palestinian fedayeen (from the Arabicfidā'ī, plural fidā'iyūn, فدائيون) refers to militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians consider the fedayeen to be "freedom fighters", while the Israeli government describes them as "terrorists". Considered symbols of the Palestinian national movement, the Palestinian fedayeen drew inspiration from guerrilla movements in Vietnam, China, Algeria and Latin America. The ideology of the Palestinian fedayeen was mainly left-wing nationalist, socialist or communist, and their proclaimed purpose was to defeat Zionism, "liberate Palestine" and establish it as "a secular, democratic, nonsectarianstate". Emerging from among the Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from their villages as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in the mid 1950s the fedayeen began mounting cross-border operations into Israel from Syria, Egypt and Jordan. The earliest infiltrations were often to access the lands agricultural products they had lost as a result of the war, or to attack Israeli military, and sometimes civilian targets. Israel undertook retaliatory actions targeting the fedayeen that also often targeted the citizens of their host countries, which in turn provoked more attacks. Fedayeen actions were cited by Israel as one of the reasons for its launching of the Sinai Campaign of 1956, the 1967 War, and the 1978 and 1982 invasions of Lebanon. 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.
Abu Nidal (May 1937 – 16 August 2002), born Sabri Khalil al-Banna, was the founder of Fatah – The Revolutionary Council, a militant Palestinian splinter group also known as the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). At the height of his power in the 1970s and 1980s, Abu Nidal, or "father of [the] struggle", was widely regarded as the most ruthless of the Palestinian political leaders. Part of the socialist Palestinian rejectionist front, so called because they reject proposals for a peaceful settlement with Israel, the ANO was formed after a split in 1974 between Abu Nidal and Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Setting himself up as a freelance contractor, Abu Nidal is believed by the United States Department of State to have ordered attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring over 900 people. The group's most notorious attacks were on the El Al ticket counters at Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, when Arab gunmen opened fire on passengers in simultaneous shootings, killing 18 and wounding 120. Abu Nidal died of between one and four gunshot wounds in Baghdad in August 2002. Palestinian sources believe he was killed on the orders of Saddam Hussein, but the Iraqi government insisted he had committed suicide.
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