Mustafa Zabri was born in 1938, in the northern West Bank town of Arrabah, the son of a farmer. In 1955 he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), and two years later was arrested by the Jordanian authorities for his political activities. On his release in 1961, he took charge of the ANM's military operations in the northern West Bank.[citation needed] Following the Israel Defense Forces' capture of the West Bank in the Six-Day War, he left the West Bank and spent 32 years mainly in Damascus and Jordan.
In September 1999 he returned to the West Bank under a deal struck between Yasser Arafat and Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Barak. In July 2000 he was elected as the new general secretary of the PFLP after Habash retired. The PFLP is designated a terrorist organization by Israel and many western states. Israel held Mustafa personally responsible for 10 different car-bomb attacks undertaken by the PFLP during his time as general secretary (in Jerusalem, Or Yehuda, Yehud, and Haifa) and other shootings.[3]
Assassination
Mustafa was killed by two rockets fired from two Israeli Apache helicopters through his two office windows, as he sat at his desk in his office in Al-Bireh city, in a targeted killing on 27 August 2001.[4][5][6] Over 50,000 mourners attended his funeral.[citation needed]
In an interview with Al Jazeera shortly before his death, Mustafa repeated his belief that the Palestinian people have the right to struggle using all means, including the armed struggle.[7] Asked about the risk of targeted killing at Israeli hands he said: "We all are targeted as soon as we begin to be mobilised. We do our best to avoid their guns, but we are living under the brutal Zionist occupation of our lands, and its army is only a few metres away from us. Of course we must be cautious, but we have work to do, and nothing will stop us." He also rejected anything less than Israel's "destruction", saying "we do not make deals or truces with Israel."[7]
^"Background on the PFLP". Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 17 October 2001. Archived from the original on 2 April 2010. Retrieved 19 October 2010.
