Kozo Okamoto, a member of the Japanese Red Army who participated in the 1972 machine-gun assault on Tel Aviv's Lod Airport, died on July 23, 2026, in Beirut, Lebanon. He was 78.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) announced his death. A senior PFLP member confirmed the death in a telephone interview, according to Nippon.com. Okamoto died around noon local time on Thursday, July 23, after suffering poor health due to old age, the same source reported. He died in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where he had lived for decades, per The New Arab.

Okamoto's death closes a chapter on one of the most striking episodes of transnational militant cooperation in the early 1970s. On May 30, 1972, three Japanese Red Army operatives opened fire in the arrivals hall of Tel Aviv's airport (then known as Lod Airport). The attack killed more than two dozen people and wounded dozens more, most of them Puerto Rican Christian pilgrims. Okamoto was the only one of the three attackers to survive. He was captured, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel, where he served 12 years before being released in 1985 as part of a prisoner exchange.

After his release, Okamoto settled in Lebanon. The PFLP, which had coordinated the 1972 operation alongside the Japanese Red Army, provided refuge. He lived in Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of Lebanese and Palestinian militant organizations, for the remainder of his life. Japan sought his extradition for years, but Lebanon declined to hand him over.

The Japanese Red Army, a small leftist militant group founded in 1971, operated primarily through partnerships with Palestinian factions. The Lod Airport attack was its most lethal operation and was carried out in coordination with the PFLP, a secular Palestinian Marxist-Leninist organization founded by George Habash. The PFLP's announcement of Okamoto's death underscores the depth of that organizational relationship, which persisted long after the Japanese Red Army effectively ceased operational activity.

Okamoto's decades-long residence in Lebanon also illustrates the enduring infrastructure of sanctuary that Palestinian factions maintained in the country, particularly in Beirut's southern suburbs. That infrastructure sheltered foreign militants from multiple jurisdictions across decades, even as the geopolitical landscape shifted around it.

For expert observers of transnational militancy, Okamoto's trajectory is a case study in the longevity of militant networks and the practical durability of asylum arrangements anchored in ideological affinity rather than formal state treaties. The Japanese Red Army never numbered more than a few dozen core members, yet its most consequential operation required only three operatives and a partner organization with local logistics. The model proved that small organizations could leverage alliances with larger, territorially embedded groups to execute attacks far beyond their own reach.

The fact that the PFLP announced Okamoto's death, rather than Japanese authorities or Lebanese officials, reflects the organizational identity that defined his final four decades. He entered the PFLP's orbit through the 1972 operation and never left it. His death in the same Beirut neighborhood where he had lived since the mid-1980s marks the end of a life spent entirely within the framework of that alliance, from the attack itself through imprisonment, release, exile, and eventual death.

No details have been reported regarding funeral arrangements or whether Japanese officials have made any renewed request for the repatriation of his remains. The PFLP's announcement did not specify further circumstances beyond attributing his death to age-related poor health.