Dalal al-Mughrabi, a Palestinian fighter who became a legend for many years, led a group of 12 fighters in one of the most talked about attacks against Israeli forces 33 years ago.

On March 11, 1978, Dalal along with her group of fighters managed to infiltrate the Lebanese-Israeli border to the coastal plain near Tel Aviv using rubber dinghy boats. She and her comrades destroyed the boats the moment they reached the coast. It was a one-way trip, as they had returned home to stay. They hijacked an Israeli military bus and took its passengers, some three dozen soldiers, as hostages after driving the bus along the coastal highway to the colony of Herzliya, where a nine-hour battle took place between them and Israeli forces. The group was killed in the fighting, so were the majority of the Israeli soldiers on the bus.

After killing Dalal al-Mughrabi, Israeli commander Ehud Barak (now Deputy Prime Minister of Israel) unclothed her in front of the cameras, fondled her breasts, stuck the bayonet of his rifle into her body and performed other atrocities on intimate parts of her body.

Dalal al-Mughrabi, the 20-year old woman, who had never seen her homeland until the moment of her death, was born in the refugee camp of Sabra in Lebanon in 1958. After Dalal’s death, her mother said that she preferred that her daughter’s body be buried in Palestine.

Three decades after her death, Dalal is still seen by Palestinians and Arabs as a hero and an outstanding fighter. In a massage she sent shortly before she died, Dalal appealed during the last gasp of her life to Palestinian factions to point their guns to their enemy – Israel, and not to get involved in internal fighting. She inspired thousands of young Palestinian and Lebanese women to follow in her footsteps, such as Sana Muhaidaly, Yvonne Abboud, Wafa Edris, Ayat Al Akhras and Hanadi Jaradat among others.

According to her mother, who was speaking to an Arabic TV channel “Dalal will never be forgotten as she will remain an admirable symbol of the Palestinian women’s struggle and an example to be emulated by young Palestinian men and women who will pursue the armed struggle until the liberation of Palestine.”