The Avivim school bus bombing was a terrorist attack on an Israeli school bus on 22 May 1970, in which 12 civilians were killed, nine of them children, and 25 were wounded, one of whom died of a wound sustained in the attack 44 years later. The attack took place on the road to Moshav

Avivim Avivim () is a moshav in Israel, in the northernmost part of Upper Galilee, less than one kilometre (3,000 feet) from the Blue Line with Lebanon. In , its population was . History Mandatory period In 1920, Saliha was designated part of Leban ...

, near Israel's border with Lebanon. Two

rocket-propelled grenade A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), also known colloquially as a rocket launcher, is a Shoulder-fired missile, shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon that launches rockets equipped with a Shaped charge, shaped-charge explosive warhead. Most RPGs can ...

s were fired at the bus. The attack was one of the first carried out by the PFLP-GC.

Attack

Early in the morning, the bus departed from Avivim heading with its passengers to two local schools. This route had been scouted by the Palestinian militants, believed to have infiltrated from Lebanon, and an ambush was set up. As the bus passed by, ten minutes after leaving Avivim, it was attacked by heavy gunfire from both sides of the road. The driver was among those hit in the initial barrage, as were the two other adults on board. The three were killed as the bus crashed into an embankment as the attackers continued firing into the vehicle. The attackers were never apprehended.

Fatalities

The children, who were in first to third grade, were buried in a special plot in

Safed Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...

. A monument commemorating the victims of the attack stands in the middle of the moshav. Leah Revivo, who survived the attack at age nine, died in 2014 at age 52 from an infection brought on by a piece of shrapnel lodged in her brain as a result of the attack.

Aftermath

Israel retaliated for the massacre by shelling four Lebanese villages, killing 20 people, injuring 40, and spurring thousands of southern Lebanon's residents to flee north. This in turn provided one of the claimed motivations for the

Dawson's Field hijackings In September 1970, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four airliners bound for New York City and one for London. Three aircraft were forced to land at Dawson's Field, a remote desert airstrip near Zarqa ...

of 6 September 1970. The IDF also began patrolling regularly inside southern Lebanon after the massacre.

References

{{Israeli-Palestinian conflict , Timeline Terrorist incidents in Asia in 1970 Attacks on buses by Palestinian militant groups School killings in Israel Mass shootings in Israel Student massacres Massacres in Israel during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Child murder in Israel May 1970 in Asia 1970 mass shootings in Asia 1970 murders in Israel Terrorist incidents in Israel in the 1970s Improvised explosive device bombings in 1970 Massacres in 1970 1970s road incidents Bus bombings in Israel Grenade attacks in Israel 20th-century mass murder in Israel Ambushes of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon Burials at the Old Jewish Cemetery, Safed

Attack

Fatalities

Aftermath

See also

References