Because airport security was focused on the possibility of a Palestinian attack , the use of Japanese attackers took the guards by surprise . The attack has often been described as a suicide mission , but it has also been asserted that it was the outcome of a unpublicized larger operation that went awry . The three perpetrators — Kōzō Okamoto , Tsuyoshi Okudaira , and Yasuyuki Yasuda — had been trained in Baalbek , Lebanon ; the actual planning was handled by Wadie Haddad ( a.k.a. Abu Hani ) , head of PFLP External Operations , with some input from Okamoto . In the immediate aftermath , '' Der Spiegel '' speculated that funding had been provided by some of the $ 5 million ransom paid by the West German government in exchange for the hostages of hijacked Lufthansa Flight 649 in February 1972
Lufthansa Flight 649
Lufthansa Flight 649
Lod Airport massacre