Two days after the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics , Israel retaliated by bombing ten PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon . Prime Minister Golda Meir created Committee X , a small group of government officials tasked with formulating an Israeli response , with herself and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan at the head . She also appointed General Aharon Yariv as her Advisor on Counterterrorism ; he , along with Mossad Director Zvi Zamir , took the principal role in directing the ensuing operation . The committee came to the conclusion that , to deter future violent incidents against Israel , they needed to assassinate those who had supported or carried out the Munich massacre , and in dramatic fashion . Pressured by Israeli public opinion and top intelligence officials , Meir reluctantly authorized the beginning of the broad assassination campaign . Yet when the three surviving perpetrators of the massacre were released just months later by West Germany in compliance with the demands of the hijackers of Lufthansa Flight 615 , any remaining ambivalence she felt was removed . The committee 's first task for Israeli intelligence was to draw up an assassination list of all those involved in Munich . This was accomplished with the aid of PLO operatives working for Mossad , and with information provided by friendly European intelligence agencies . While the contents of the entire list are unknown , reports put the final number of targets at 20 – 35 , a mix of Black September and PLO elements . Once this was complete , Mossad was charged with locating the individuals and assassinating them
hijackers of Lufthansa Flight 615
Lufthansa Flight 615
Operation Wrath of God