KHALED, LAYLA (1944–)

Palestinian activist, born in January 1944 at Haifa. Layla Khaled fled Palestine for Lebanon with her family during the Arab-Israel War of 1948. In 1962 she entered the American University of Beirut, where she joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM). In 1963 she went to Kuwait to teach, and after the Arab defeat in the June 1967 War she joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) of George Habash. After paramilitary training in Jordan, she led a commando in hijacking a TWA plane from Rome to Tel Aviv, via Athens, on 30 August 1969. During this flight she made the pilot fly over Haifa, so she could see the hometown she was not allowed to visit. The commandos forced the plane to land at Damascus, allowed the passengers to leave, then blew up the airplane. In exchange for the life of the hostages, thirteen Palestinian prisoners were released. Overnight Khaled become a heroine of the Palestinian resistance; her face was so recognizable that she had plastic surgery to disguise it. On 6 September 1970, she participated in a second hijacking, this time of an El Al plane flying between Amsterdam and London. This hijacking was foiled by Israeli guards, who shot her accomplice, and she was arrested when the plane landed in the British capital. Imprisoned for three weeks, she was released as part of a prisoner-hostage exchange deal with another PFLP group that had hijacked three airliners to a remote airstrip in Jordan. Between 1971 and 1978 she participated in various activities in the PFLP. In July 1980 she was part of the Palestinian delegation that went to Copenhagen to attend the United Nations world conference on women. In April 1981, she was elected to the Palestine National Council (PNC), representing the General Union of Palestinian Women. Opposed to the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords, she has lived in Jordan since 1992. Khaled is a member of the central committee of the PFLP and has devoted much of her time to the cause of Palestinian women and of the refugees.

SEE ALSO Arab-Israel War (1948);Arab Nationalist Movement;Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine;Oslo Accords;Palestine National Council.