The
Coastal Road massacre of 1978 was an attack involving the hijacking of a bus on
Israel's
Coastal Highway in which 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed, and 71 were wounded. The attack was planned by
Abu Jihad and carried out by the
PLO faction
Fatah. The plan was to seize a luxury hotel in
Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage in order to exchange them for
Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. According to a Fatah commander who had helped to plan the attack, the timing was aimed at scuppering the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks between
Menachem Begin and
Anwar Sadat and damaging
tourism in Israel. However, due to a navigation error, the attackers ended up north of their target, and were forced to find alternative transportation to their destination.