Leila Khaled

ليلى خالد

Born: Haifa, Mandatory Palestine

Domain: Politics & Diplomacy

Recognition: GLOBAL

Biography

Leila Khaled is a Palestinian political militant and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who became, through two airplane hijackings at the turn of the 1970s, one of the most globally recognizable icons of the Palestinian armed struggle. Born in Haifa in 1944, she and her family were displaced in the 1948 Nakba and settled in Lebanon, where her early exposure to dispossession drew her into Palestinian and pan-Arab nationalist politics as a teenager. Khaled joined the PFLP and trained in its special operations unit. In August 1969 she took part in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840, and in September 1970 she participated in an attempted hijacking of an El Al airliner, part of the coordinated Dawson's Field operations, during which she was overpowered and briefly detained in Britain before being released in a prisoner exchange. These operations were designed to force international attention onto the Palestinian cause. A photograph of Khaled holding a rifle and wearing a keffiyeh circulated worldwide and turned her into a global emblem of revolutionary and feminist defiance, reproduced on posters, in art, and in popular culture across the political spectrum. She is widely cited as one of the first female figures to achieve such international visibility in armed national-liberation struggle, complicating prevailing images of both Palestinians and of women in politics. In the decades since, Khaled has remained politically active within the PFLP, serving on its political bureau, and has reframed her public role as a spokesperson and lecturer for the Palestinian cause, supporting movements such as the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign. She remains a polarizing figure, celebrated by supporters as a freedom fighter and condemned by others for the hijackings. Leila Khaled endures as one of the most iconic images of the Palestinian struggle and a symbol of women's participation in national liberation. Whatever the judgment on her methods, her global recognizability gave the Palestinian cause a visibility in the popular imagination that few political figures have matched.

Why This Person Matters

Khaled became the most globally recognizable icon of the Palestinian armed struggle and a symbol of women's participation in national liberation.