April 10, 2005 — NATO Holds First Workshop in Israel
The Teaching Center for Trauma, Emergency, and Mass Casualty Situations of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa was an organizer of the 2005 NATO conference. Rambam Health Care Campus.
NATO holds its first event in Israel — a five-day conference in Haifa on medical preparedness for mass casualty events, inspired by such terrorist attacks as the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Besides Israel, the participating countries are Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Portugal, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
April 11, 1961 — Eichmann Trial Begins in Jerusalem
Adolf Eichmann, in the glass cage on the left, faces the three-judge panel at the start of his trial in Jerusalem on April 11, 1961. Israeli Government Press Office, CC BY-SA 3.0.
A special panel of three judges in Jerusalem opens the war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer who organized and executed the “Final Solution” to the problem of Jewish existence in Europe during World War II. The Mossad captured Eichmann the previous year in Argentina, where he was living under an assumed name. The trial lasts until December and results in Eichmann’s conviction and execution.
April 12, 1984 — 4 Terrorists Hijack Bus 300
Egged Bus 300 sits after the raid that ended the hijacking and freed the hostages.
Four Arab terrorists hijack Egged Bus 300, carrying 41 passengers from Tel Aviv to Ashkelon. The hijacking turns into a chase as the terrorists try to reach the Egyptian border. The army shoots out the tires 10 miles from the border. Rejecting demands to release 500 Palestinians, the IDF attacks the bus and frees all but one hostage. Two terrorists are killed in the assault; two others are captured and executed in a field.
April 13, 1971 — Black Panthers Meet With Meir
A Black Panther poster in Hebrew reads, “War on poverty — not the poor.”
Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir meets with leaders of the Black Panthers, a Mizrahi activist group unaffiliated with the U.S. group. Israel’s Black Panthers protest the social injustice and discrimination felt by non-Ashkenazi Jews. A threat to hold a hunger strike at the Western Wall won them the meeting with Meir, who later calls them “not nice people” after a protest by 6,000 Black Panthers in Jerusalem results in clashes with the police.
April 14, 1976 — Ex-IDF Chief of Staff Elazar Dies
IDF Chief of Staff David Elazar is shown riding a helicopter to the Sinai late in the October 1973 war. By David Rubinger, Israeli Government Press Office, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Lt. Gen. David “Dado” Elazar, the IDF chief of staff during the Yom Kippur War, dies of a heart attack at 50, two years after he resigned from the military in disgrace over the failures of the October 1973 war. A native of Yugoslavia, Elazar made aliyah in 1940. He joined the Palmach before the War of Independence. He led the capture of the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War and became IDF chief of staff in 1972.
April 15, 1940 — Munich Victim Yossef Romano Is Born
Members of Israeli sports organizations form a guard of honor welcoming the bodies of the 11 slain Olympians back to Israel at the Lod airport Oct. 7, 1972. By David Eldan, Israeli Government Press Office, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Weightlifter Yossef Romano, one of the 11 Israelis murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics, is born in Libya. He makes aliyah with his family in 1946 and settles in Herzliya. He wins nine national championships and competes in the world championships in 1965 and 1969. He suffers a torn ligament at the Munich Olympics and is supposed to fly home Sept. 6 for surgery. But he is killed the day before while fighting off the terrorists.
April 16, 1988 — Commandos Assassinate Abu Jihad
The funeral for Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir) is held in Damascus in April 1988.
Khalil al-Wazir, the planner behind multiple terrorist massacres of Israelis and an organizer of the First Intifada as the Fatah co-founder known as Abu Jihad, is assassinated at his Tunis home by commandos from the IDF’s elite Sayeret Maktal unit. After being ferried to the Tunisian shoreline, two soldiers, one dressed as a woman, pretend to be a couple to make their way to al-Wazir’s home with a gun hidden in a box of chocolates.
Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (israeled.org), where you can find more details.