Munich remembers Olympics massacre

A memorial service has been held to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre when Palestinian gunmen killed 11 Israelis.

Both government officials and religious leaders gathered in the southern Germany city earlier to remember the dead.

The militants burst into the Israeli athletes’ rooms in the Olympic village, immediately killing two and taking nine others hostage.
A German policeman was also killed during the violence.

Former Israeli fencer Dan Alon said that he had narrowly escaped being caught up in the killings as he was sleeping next door at the time.

“(It was) the place that I chose to walk in before everybody else and it was a destiny,” Alon said.

Palestinian militants from the Black September group carried out the kidnapping and killings in a bid to persuade Israel to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

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