Leila Khaled

Leila Khaled became an icon of Palestinian resistance. She was also the first female hijacker. They never set out to hurt anyone- their main goal was to bring awareness to Palestine. In her words- “When we hijacked the planes the whole world wondered who we were. Regardless of what they thought about it, they wondered. But when we were tortured in lsraeli prisons, who heard our screams? We had to do what we did in order to get your attention.”
A famous image of her is a smiling beautiful young woman with a ring that she made from a bullet and a grenade pin casually holding an AK-47 rifle. Within a year, she underwent six cosmetic surgeries to distort her face so she wouldn’t be recognized during her second hijacking.
To this day she considers herself a freedom fighter who says she would die for the cause but she hopes that someday soon, “A democratic solution, a human solution” will be reached.