A Palestinian woman known for hijacking two planes in one year will deliver a speech next Friday at a fundraising event organized by the "Palestine Solidarity Campaign" in Birmingham, England. This organization organized a massive pro-Palestinian rally in London last month, where the slogan "From the river to the sea" appeared on the British Parliament building, sparking controversy and protests from Jewish organizations, which protested against allowing Leila Khaled to speak.
Khaled will appear alongside Palestinian Huda Amori, who co-founded the "Palestine Solidarity Campaign," targeting companies in the UK that supply weapons to Israel. However, Khaled, who was born 79 years ago in Haifa and currently resides with her two sons and husband in Jordan's capital, Amman, will not attend the event in person but will appear via video.
She will deliver her speech via video, as she has been prohibited from visiting Britain since 2005 when the British Embassy denied her a visa to speak at a festival meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland, due to her being a leading member of the "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine," classified as a terrorist organization by the EU, the US, Canada, and Japan. This restriction is also due to her history of hijacking planes.
The first plane she hijacked was helped by Saleem al-Aisawi, who passed away in 2012 from cancer. On August 29, 1969, they hijacked a TWA plane traveling from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv via Rome. The two boarded the plane during its stopover at the Italian capital's airport. After half an hour, they armedly diverted Flight 840 to Damascus, where they detonated the plane after releasing the 116 passengers aboard.
Later, in 1970, Khaled went to Frankfurt with American citizen Patrick Argüello, who was 27 at that time, and boarded an El Al plane as part of a coordinated operation to hijack three planes, one in Zurich, Switzerland, and the other in the United States. However, the El Al plane ended in disaster; Khaled's two accomplices could not make it, and the Nicaraguan was killed by the plane's guards during an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport in London. She was arrested by Scotland Yard police and released a month later in a prisoner exchange after her associates hijacked a Pan American plane.
