A Short But Distinguished Life – Who Was Kamal Adwan?

By Iqbal Jassat

As international attention focuses on the tragic fate of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gazait is instructive to remember the history of the person after whom the facility is named.

Kamal Adwan was one of the greatest leaders of the Palestine liberation movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with a remarkable record of armed struggle alongside Yasser Arafat in the 1950s until the 1970s, when the infamous Mossad assassinated him .

Decades before the disastrous era of collaboration that led to the capitulation known as the Oslo Accords, Adwan was a freedom fighter.

As head of PLO operations, he was responsible for armed attacks against targets in Israel. And as a founding member of Fatah, Adwan was a top leader of the Black September Organization.

Interestingly, the name “Black September” emerged during Jordan’s violent crackdown on the PLO, when Palestinians called

for the overthrow of the Jordanian monarchy. It began on September 16, 1970, when Jordan’s allied monarch, King Hussein, declared military rule to combat and eliminate the growing power of the PLO-affiliated Fedayeen.

Adwan’s short but distinguished life as an outstanding figure in the Palestinian freedom struggle is immortalized in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, having hospital in northern Gaza that bears his name.

From the archives of the Yasser Arafat Foundation we learn much about the extraordinary contribution of this amazing revolutionary:

“Kamal Adwan was born in 1935 in the village of Barbara, near the city of Ashqelon. During the Nakba of 1948, his family was displaced to the Gaza Strip. Adwan attended schools in the Gaza Strip and joined the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Following the disagreement between Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954, Adwan left the Muslim Brotherhood. Believing in the armed struggle of the Fedayees, he sought another way and established an independent cell of 12 youths.

“In 1956, Adwan participated in the resistance to the Israeli occupation of Gaza City. It was committed until the end of the occupation – after the tripartite aggression on Egypt.

“At high school, Adwan met Yasser Arafat, Khalil Al-Wazir and others who would later become leaders of Palestinian revolutionary activity. Adwan then went to Egypt to study petroleum engineering. However, due to his difficult financial situation, he was forced to drop out of higher education after two years and went to Saudi Arabia to work in the oil sector.

“Adwan was in contact with Arafat, Al-Wazir and the other founders of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) in Kuwait. He established a Fatah branch in Saudi Arabia and, after moving to Qatar to work in the oil sector, headed the Fatah branch there. In 1964, Adwan was elected a member of the first Palestinian National Council.

“Adwan devoted his time and effort to the revolutionary work led by Fatah and returned to Amman, Jordan in April 1968 to head the PLO Press Office. He established the office as a media agency with a wide Arab and international network and an independent newspaper.

“Adwan participated in the battles for the defense of the Palestinian Revolution of September 1970, as well as the battles of Jarash-‘Ajlun in 1971.

Adwan left Jordan with the leaders and forces of the Palestinian Revolution for Syria and then Lebanon. He was elected to the Fatah Central Committee at the 3rd Conference in January 1971. In addition to running the PLO Media Agency, Adwan was assigned the supervision of the Western Sector (Occupied Territory).

“Adwan was martyred in his home on Fardan Street in Beirut on April 10, 1973, during an Israeli Intelligence Agency (Mossad) operation that also extrajudicially killed Kamal Nasser and Abu Yousef Al-Najjar. Ehud Barak, who became Israel’s prime minister in 1999, led the operation.”

As a key figure in Palestine’s decades-old resistance against the illegal creation of Israel, Adwan’s story of being turned into a refugee as a result of Zionist war crimes during the Nakba of 1948 parallels the experience of millions of Palestinians.

Ehud Barak, who led the terrorist commando unit that killed Adwan and a number of fedayeen, is unfairly viewed as a “pigeon” compared to Netanyahu and his criminal gang of warlords.

Far from being seen as a “holy grandfather”, Barak’s military career was stained with the blood of innocent Palestinians, serving in various command positions, including the head of the terrorist army’s intelligence unit. A war criminal indeed.

Adwan’s martyrdom in Beirut reminds us that Israel’s violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty has been an ongoing defiance of international law.