Luttif Afif

Afif was portrayed by Italian actor Franco Nero in the 1976 TV movie 21 Hours at Munich and by French actor Karim Saleh in Steven Spielberg's film Munich (2005).

Luttif Afif (Arabic: لطيف عفيف; 1937 or 1945 – 6 September 1972; alias "Issa"—Jesus in Arabic) was a Palestinian terrorist. He commanded the eight-member attack team that carried out the Munich massacre, an invasion of the Munich Olympic Village on 5 September 1972. During the incident, nine members of Israel's Olympic team were taken hostage after two others, who had offered resistance, were shot dead. Afif was the chief negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians, who were members of the Black September offshoot of Yassir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. Afif and four of his compatriots were later killed by German snipers at Fürstenfeldbruck air base outside Munich.

Abu Iyad, the head of Black September, wrote that both Afif and his second-in-command, Tony, had fought in Amman in September 1970 and in the battle of Jerash and Ajlun in July 1971. In the early 1970s, Afif was living in Berlin and was engaged to a German woman.

According to Simon Reeve, Afif enjoyed the time he spent in Europe, but joined Fatah in 1966, possibly while residing in Germany. He later returned to the Middle East to fight several battles against Israeli soldiers.

Luttif Afif was born in Nazareth. Biographies of Afif claimed that his mother was Jewish, while his father was a wealthy Christian Arab businessman. However, both his family and Israel's interior ministry records dispute the claim about his mother. According to the records, his mother, Arifa, was born in 1920 to Hassan and Amina. Afif had three brothers, all of whom were in Black September; two were in Israeli jails. In 1958, he moved to West Germany to study engineering, learned the language, and then moved to France to work.