Leila Khaled (Arabic: ليلى خالد, Arabic pronunciation: [ˈlajla ˈxaːled] born April 9, 1944) is a Palestinian refugee, former militant, and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Khaled came to public attention 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. The first woman to hijack an airplane, she was later released in a prisoner exchange for civilian hostages kidnapped by other PFLP members.
Khaled was born in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, to Arab parents. Her family fled to Lebanon on April 13, 1948, as part of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, 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.

Return to Leila Khaled Autograph Profile