Who is the PFLP accused of holding Kfir, the youngest Israeli, as a 10-month-old hostage?

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The name of this political and military movement, closely linked to the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East for almost 60 years, has been on everyone’s lips in Israel since Tuesday.

At a time when Hamas released several dozen Israeli hostages as part of a truce between Israel and the terrorist organization, the IDF assured that members of the Bibas family would be in the hands of the PFLP. According to Lt. Col. Avichai, Kfir (10 months) and Ariel (4 years), as well as their parents Shiri and Jordan, were detained by this “Palestinian faction” in the Khan Yunis area after they were kidnapped by Hamas members in Kibbutz Nir Oz. Adri, who spoke about this in an interview with Sky News.

Israeli diplomacy is also spreading this information on social networks, also highlighting its participation in the October 7 attacks and the connections of this Palestinian faction with some parties of the French left. The PFLP has not yet formalized or refuted this claim by Israeli forces. The organization is considered “terrorist” and “illegal” under Israeli law, as well as the laws of the United States and the European Union.

What are the origins of the PFLP?

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (in Arabic al-Jabhah al-Shabiyah li-Tahrir Filasteen), abbreviated PFLP) is a Palestinian Marxist-Leninist organization that arose from the Arab nationalist movement, which turned into politics and armed struggle. founded in 1967 under the leadership of Georges Habash and Ahmed Jibril. He subsequently adopted Marxism as his ideological line in 1969.

From the very beginning, Georges Habash positioned his movement in an antagonistic relationship with the dominant political faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. In the 1970s, Habash opposed the dogmatic evolution of Fatah, which now made it a priority to declare a Palestinian state only in part of historical Palestine. It is in this sense that in 1974 it represented a “front of refusal” against Yasser Arafat along with other components of the Palestinian movement.

At the same time, the movement gained international “notoriety” for the hostage-taking activities it carried out abroad, including the famous hijacking of Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris in 1976, which led to hostage taking at Entebbe airport, Uganda. And the spectacular rescue of 105 Israelis.

In 1974, the movement was behind the hostage crisis in Ma’alot, Israel. During the assault, 25 hostages, including 22 children, were killed and another 68 were injured as a result of gunfire and a grenade thrown by the commando commander.

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the PFLP has remained in the camp of opponents of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, as it openly rejects recognition of the State of Israel by the PLO, as well as the content of the peace agreements. However, the PFLP remained within the PLO to influence decision-making, and Georges Habash left the leadership.

What does the PFLP weigh today?

For more than 20 years, the aura of the Marxist-Leninist movement has faded in the galaxy of Palestinian factions. “The withering away of left-wing ideals” appears to explain the movement’s weak electoral impact in the Palestinian territories, Aude Signolle noted in a 2011 encyclopedia article. But the latter has not yet disappeared from the radar. Vice versa. For example, during the 2005 municipal elections, PFLP candidate Janet Khoury was elected mayor of Ramallah thanks to Hamas votes against the Fatah candidate. She is the first woman to be elected mayor of a major Palestinian city.

“The organization is still present in the Gaza Strip, as well as in Beirut, Damascus and Jordan. They control the refugee camps,” confirms a keen expert on the galaxy of Palestinian movements. “In Beirut, one of the Palestinian refugee camps is still under their control, and they are still present in the occupied territories, in the West Bank,” our source adds. According to regular sources, the PFLP participated in the October 7 attacks.

“The weight of the PFLP corresponds to the weight of Marxist forces in the Arab world. That is, it is extremely weak due to the decline of Arab nationalism in favor of the rise of Islamism. These movements have been relegated to the background,” adds geopolitical scientist Frederic Ensel. “Today the Palestinian population is much more traditionalist and closer to Islamist ideology. In the West Bank or Gaza, it is more difficult for them to unite with new generations,” adds the Middle East specialist.

“Marxism-Leninism has fallen somewhat into disuse, but their leader is in prison in Israel, there is no doubt that political negotiations have come into play,” in this possible transfer of responsibility from the Hamas hostages to the PFLP, with our veteran of maneuvers within the PLO continues to advance. Still a member of the PLO, its influence has declined over the past 20 years, but still influences debates within Palestinian factions.

“The PFLP still exists, the proof of which is that they have continued to carry out attacks over the past 15 years. These are groups that develop a paranoid syndrome towards the Mossad in particular, and therefore they communicate little, but if they take hostages, it is to exchange them with their historical prisoners. This is their only interest in this conflict,” concludes the author of the Geopolitical Atlas of Israel.

Indeed, in 2008, Israel sentenced Ahmad Saadat, the main leader of the PFLP, to 30 years in prison. In custody since 2006, he was found guilty of all acts committed by his organization since October 2001. The PFLP acknowledged at least thirteen attacks during this period, including several fatal suicide attacks and an attack on a kibbutz that killed four people and injured seven.

Ahmad Saadat was charged with 19 charges, including endangering the security of Israel as part of his activities with the PFLP. There is no doubt that, in such a context, his particular case may resurface in negotiations between the warring parties, as well as the case of other symbolic leaders of the Palestinian cause.