Palestinian Authority to name public square after resistance martyr

GAZA, (KUNA) -- Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s mainstream Fatah movement intends to organize a celebration for the inauguration of a public square in central Ramallah on Thursday in commemoration of resistance martyr Dalal Al-Mughrabi, who died in 1978 in an operation inside Israel.

"Mughrabi (born in 1958 and a resident of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon) is a Palestinian resistance fighter whose name is imprinted in the history of the Palestinian struggle," Fatah's revolutionary council secretary Amin magboul said in a statement to KUNA here today.

Israel protests the naming of the public square after Mughrabi, whose remains are still in the Israeli authorities' custody.

On the morning of March 11, 1978, Mughrabi and her Palestinian unit of eleven members, including one other woman, landed inside Israel and hijacked a bus and killed 37 people. Some 71 people were wounded. Mughrabi and several other attackers died.

The attack became known as the Coastal Road Massacre, and the Israeli military forces launched Operation Litani against PLO bases in Lebanon three days later.

The Palestinian Authority named a Hebron girls' school after Mughrabi. Her name has also been given to summer camps.