Kozo Okamoto dies, PFLP says in Tel Aviv shooting case

2026-07-24

Events and aftermath

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group that advocates the liberation of Palestine from Israel, said on the 23rd that Kozo Okamoto, a Japanese Red Army member who was internationally wanted in connection with a 1972 shooting at an airport near Tel Aviv, Israel, in which more than 20 people were killed, had died.

According to the PFLP, Okamoto received support from the group in Lebanon, where he had political asylum, and died in the suburbs of the capital, Beirut.

Detention and release

Okamoto was detained by Israeli authorities shortly after the incident and sentenced to life in prison. He was later released in a prisoner exchange in 1985 and had since been based in Lebanon.

In 1997, along with four other members, he was arrested by Lebanese authorities on suspicion of passport forgery and was convicted. After serving his sentence in 2000, the four were forcibly deported to Japan, but Okamoto had been granted political asylum in Lebanon.

Origins of the Japanese Red Army

The Japanese Red Army was formed in the 1970s by former top leader Fusako Shigenobu and others who went to Lebanon, based on the so-called international base theory, which called for building a revolutionary base overseas. Shigenobu was arrested in 2000 and later announced the dissolution of the Japanese Red Army.

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