The 1972 Summer Olympics, held in Munich, were overshadowed by a tragic event - a terrorist attack organized by the radical Palestinian group "Black September". As a result, on September 5, 11 members of the Israeli delegation - athletes, coaches and judges - were taken hostage. During the hostage rescue operation carried out by the German special services, all of them, as well as 5 terrorists, were killed. But the terrorist attack at the Munich Olympics did not end there.
Israel, for which the incident became a national tragedy, was not satisfied with the results of the investigation of the terrorist act. The surviving terrorists and those involved in organizing the attack were detained by the German police, but under the threat of new terrorist attacks, which the Palestinians promised to carry out, the detainees were released as a result of the exchange. The bodies of five dead Palestinians, at the insistence of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, were handed over to Palestine, where they were named national heroes and buried with great fanfare.
Of course, this state of affairs did not suit Israel at all, since the perpetrators of the death of the athletes were not punished either under state or international laws. The question of adequate retaliatory measures, or, more simply, of revenge, arose at the highest state level.
Operation "Wrath of God" began, which was carried out by the Israeli intelligence service "Mossad". Its goal was the physical elimination of all the participants in the terrorist attack and the people involved in it. There were 17 of them. The punishment for the terrorists was not long in coming - already in October 1972, one of the organizers of the terrorist attack was shot. 9 months after the tragedy, 13 people were already marked with crosses on the Mossad's list.
Two more Palestinians involved in the killing of athletes died later. The other two from the Mossad list escaped punishment, one of them died in 2010, the second, the only survivor, is hiding in one of the African countries.
The London 2012 Olympics mark 40 years of events in Munich. Members of the IOC, athletes and residents of London honored the memory of the victims of the terrorist attack on 23 July. After the ceremony at the Armistice Wall, symbolizing the peacekeeping idea of the Olympic Games, there was a minute of silence. More than 100 people took part in this event, including IOC Chairman Jacques Rogge, the head of the organizing committee of the London Olympics Lord Coe, as well as the mayor of the city B. Johnson.
