Kozo Okamoto, the 78-year-old Japanese leftist militant whose decades-long life tied to the Palestinian resistance movement made him a polarizing but iconic figure across the Middle East, has died in Beirut following a long-term illness. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the group that hosted and supported Okamoto throughout his decades of residence in Lebanon, confirmed his death in an official statement released Thursday.
Born in Japan, Okamoto joined the ranks of the Japanese Red Army (JRA), a far-left internationalist militant faction founded in 1971 that aligned closely with Palestinian resistance groups opposing Israeli occupation. On May 30, 1972, he and two fellow JRA members carried out a coordinated attack on Israel’s Lod Airport—now known as Ben Gurion International Airport—near Tel Aviv, an operation planned in partnership with the PFLP.
After arriving on a flight originating in Europe, the three militants collected hidden rifles and grenades from their checked luggage before opening fire on airport crowds. Okamoto’s two accomplices were killed during the assault, while Okamoto himself was wounded and taken into custody by Israeli security forces. The attack left 26 people dead: 17 Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico, eight Israeli citizens, and one additional casualty. The PFLP has long framed the 1972 operation as a direct retaliation for a 1968 Israeli commando raid on Beirut International Airport, which destroyed 13 civilian aircraft and drew widespread global condemnation.
Following his capture, an Israeli military tribunal sentenced Okamoto to life in prison. He spent 12 years in Israeli custody, much of it in solitary confinement. According to the PFLP’s statement, Okamoto endured abusive conditions during his imprisonment, including being forced to eat from the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back. In 1985, Okamoto was released in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions, after which he traveled to Lebanon and was granted political asylum.
Over his decades in Lebanon, Okamoto went by the alias Ahmad al-Yabani, or “Ahmad the Japanese,” among Palestinian communities. He rarely made public appearances, but remained a potent symbol of transnational solidarity with the Palestinian cause. In 1997, Lebanese authorities detained Okamoto and four other Japanese citizens over irregular immigration status. While the other four were deported back to Japan in 2000, Lebanese authorities repeatedly rejected Tokyo’s extradition requests and allowed Okamoto to remain in the country. During his 1990s legal proceedings in Lebanon, Okamoto publicly identified himself as “an Arab resistance fighter.”
Okamoto made one of his final public appearances in May 2022, at a ceremony in a Beirut cemetery honoring Palestinian resistance figures, marking the 50th anniversary of the Lod Airport attack. The JRA, which carried out multiple attacks across the globe in the 1970s, eventually disbanded in later decades, but Okamoto never abandoned his stated commitments. In its tribute, the PFLP described Okamoto’s life as one “marked by immense sacrifices spanning for decades on the battlefields of struggle in support of the Palestinian cause,” adding that he “never compromised nor faltered but remained steadfast to his principles.”
To supporters across the Arab world, Okamoto leaves behind a legacy as a foreign activist who abandoned his home country to stand in solidarity with Palestinians fighting Israeli occupation. His death closes a decades-long chapter of transnational militant solidarity linked to one of the most high-profile attacks of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.