Munich massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacks and takes hostage 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Two die in the attack and nine are murdered the following day.

The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, carried out by eight members of the Palestinian militant organisation Black September. The militants infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team, and took nine other Israeli team members hostage. Those hostages were later also killed by the militants during a failed rescue attempt.

Palestinian political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Palestinians with the intent to accomplish political goals in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Common objectives of political violence by Palestinian groups include self-determination in and sovereignty over all of the region of Palestine, or the recognition of a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders. This includes the objective of ending the Israeli occupation. More limited goals include the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.

The Black September Organization was a Palestinian militant organization, which was founded in September 1970. Besides other actions, the group was responsible for the assassination of the Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tal, and the Munich massacre, in which eleven Israeli athletes and officials were kidnapped and killed, as well as a West German policeman dying, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event. These attacks led to the creation or specialization of permanent counter-terrorism forces in many European countries.

Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. It shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. It occupies the Palestinian territories of the West Bank in the east and the Gaza Strip in the south-west, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights in the northeast. Israel also has a small coastline on the Red Sea at its southernmost point, and part of the Dead Sea lies along its eastern border. Its proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, while Tel Aviv is its largest urban area and economic centre.