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    The six were told that they had been selected for a top secret mission. The details of the operation remained a mystery. They were instructed to leave their families without telling them anything about what they were doing. In mid-July, the month before the Olympics, the group of six flew to Libya for advanced military training. In the isolation of the desert camp the six young men became one cohesive group. “We got to know each other during training in Libya; we were all alike, children of the Palestinian refugee camps with a shared cause and a shared aim,” Jamal Al-Jishey said. Al-Jishey and his partners endured endless hours of intensive training drills at a tent camp deep in the heart of the Libyan desert. In the dead heat of July, an exhaustive exercise routine beat them into shape. Their daily regimen included endless sprints and leaps, especially over walls and fences. Al-Jishey was sure he was going to be sent into a Zionist army base. He never imagined that the drills were preparing him for quick entry into the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany.
             
    Muhammad Massalha, twenty-seven, was appointed commander of the operation. He spoke fluent German. As a teen, he had lived in West Germany for several years. He chose the nickname Issa, Arabic for Jesus. His second in command, Tony (Yussef Nazzal), used the nom de guerre Che Guevara, in tribute to the South American revolutionary. Abu-Iyad referred to Tony as the military mind behind Ikrit and Biram. He was a well-educated twenty-five-year-old who spoke German well. Both men were brought into the limited circle of knowledge. In early summer, Issa and Tony visited Munich. They watched the village being built, learning its layout and its points of vulnerability. Palestinian accomplices, many of them students at German universities, helped Issa and Tony collect information. They did not ask the goal of the mission. Their mantra was blind, unflinching assistance.
    With the weapons safely stored in the train station lockers, the leaders of the operation, Abu-Iyad, Abu-Daoud, and Fakhri Al-Omri, had to see to the safe arrival of the six terrorists. It was their duty to ensure that the foot soldiers, without whom the meticulously planned operation would have to be aborted, would fly out of Tripoli and arrive in Munich without arousing suspicion. There was the constant threat of discovery; one alert customs official could bring the whole mission to a halt. That did not happen.
    On August 31, five days into the Olympic Games, Jamal Al-Jishey, his uncle Adnan, and Mohammed Safady landed in Munich. The three flew from Tripoli, and stopped briefly in Rome before landing in Munich. The other three foot soldiers arrived in Munich via Belgrade. They each held a Jordanian passport, forged in Beirut and delivered to Tripoli. Each passport had a fake West German entry visa. The work was so amateurish that in one of the passports the visa was attached upside down, crossed out with a black X, and replaced by an additional visa, placed right side up, on the next page. The two groups were met by Issa and Tony and taken to several small hotels and hostels located in the city center, next to the train station. During the following four days, the eight Palestinians acted like normal tourists, sightseeing, eating out, and catching up on sleep. Jamal Al-Jishey even went to two Olympic volleyball games.
    On September 4, shortly before midnight, the group of eight met at the central railway station restaurant, where they learned what their mission entailed. After settling the bill, the group walked over to the nearby lockers to collect the weapons that had been waiting for them all week. They returned to their separate hotels and changed into red training suits, which would help them blend in with the athletes in the Olympic Village. They rode in two cabs. Jamal Al-Jishey, the only one to speak publicly about that night, said, “I was young, full of enthusiasm and