Leila Khaled
Palestinian refugee, former militant, and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Leila Khaled (Arabic: ليلى خالد [ˈlajla ˈxaːled]; born April 9, 1944) is a Palestinian activist and former militant who is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She is famous for her role in two plane-hijackings, and was the second woman to be involved in such an operation.
Khaled gained her prominence for her role in the TWA Flight 840 hijacking in 1969 and one of the four simultaneous Dawson's Field hijackings the following year as part of the campaign of Black September in Jordan. After being imprisoned, she was released in a prisoner exchange for civilian hostages kidnapped by other PFLP members.
Early life
Khaled was born on April 9, 1944, in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, to Arab parents. Her family fled to Lebanon on April 13, 1948, as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, leaving her father behind. At the age of 15, following in the footsteps of her brother, she joined the pan-Arab Arab Nationalist Movement, originally established in the late 1940s by George Habash, then a medical student at the American University of Beirut. The Palestinian branch of this movement became the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine after the 1967 Six-Day War. Khaled spent some time teaching in Kuwait.
The hijackings
TWA Flight 840 (1969)
On August 29, 1969, Khaled was part of a team that hijacked TWA Flight 840 on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv, diverting the Boeing 707 to Damascus.
The public source identifies “Leila Khaled” as palestinian refugee, former militant, and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Leila, Khaled and Palestinian.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Leila Khaled”, the useful work is to connect “palestinian refugee, former militant, and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q233928. VIAF identifies the subject as 112211089. The Library of Congress control number is n50045825. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1969, 1948 and 1967.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Leila Khaled”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Leila Khaled primary sources, Leila Khaled archive and Leila research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Leila Khaled”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Leila Khaled” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.