Abu Daoud Mohammad Daoud Oudeh ( ) , commonly known by his nom de guerre Abu Daoud or Abu Dawud ( ) 1937 , – 3 July 2010 ) was a Palestinian known as the planner , architect and mastermind of the Munich massacre . He served in a number of commanding functions in Fatah ' s armed units in Lebanon and Jordan . Biography . Oudeh was born in Silwan , East Jerusalem , in 1937 . He was a teacher by training . He taught physics and maths in Jordan and Saudi Arabia . Then he worked at the justice ministry of Kuwait and studied law . He lived in Jerusalem until the 1967 Six - Day War , when he was displaced as Israel captured the eastern portion of the city ; he resettled in Jordan , where he joined the PLO . In 1970 , Abu Daoud was one of the founders of Fatah . From 1971 , he was leader of the Black September , a Fatah offshoot created to avenge the September 1970 expulsion of the Fedayeen Movement from Jordan and carry out international operations . The group gained international notoriety for its role in the Munich massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics , in which a number of athletes on the Israeli team were taken hostage by Black September . Eleven Israeli athletes and a German policeman were killed by the end of the multi - day standoff . After the Black September operations , Oudeh began to live in Eastern Europe and Lebanon . He resumed his activity in Fatah and the PLO in close collaboration with Abu Iyad and other officials . He led armed units in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War . In January 1977 , Oudeh was intercepted by French police in Paris while travelling from Beirut under an assumed name . Under protest from the PLO , Iraq , and Libya , who claimed that because Oudeh was traveling to a PLO comrade ' s funeral he should receive diplomatic immunity , the French government refused a West German extradition request on grounds that forms had not been filled in properly and put him on a plane to Algeria before Germany could submit another request . Oudeh fled to Eastern Europe , then to Lebanon until the 1975 Lebanese Civil War broke out , then back to Jordan . On 1 August 1981 , Oudeh was shot five times from a distance of around two meters in the coffee shop of the Victoria Inter - Continental Hotel in Warsaw , but he survived the attack , chasing his would - be assassin down to the front entrance before collapsing . Oudeh claimed the attempted assassination was carried out by a Palestinian double agent recruited by the Mossad , and claimed the would - be assassin was executed by the PLO ten years later . After the 1993 Oslo Accords , he moved to Ramallah in the West Bank . Following a trip to Jordan and the publication of his memoirs , Oudeh was banned from returning to Ramallah . He settled with his family in Syria , the only country that would take him . He lived on a pension provided by the Palestinian Authority and gave interviews to Aljazeera and other Arab and international media outlets about his life , the Munich events , and Palestinian politics . Oudeh was allowed safe passage through Israel in 1996 , so he could attend a PLO meeting in the Gaza Strip to rescind an article in the PLO charter calling for Israel ' s eradication . Munich massacre . As a commander of Black September , Abu Daoud was the mastermind behind the Munich massacre . While he planned the operation , he did not personally take part in it . The day before the operation commenced on 5 September 1972 , Abu Daoud briefed the assassination squad and issued final instructions over dinner in a restaurant at the Munich railway station . Then in 2006 , Abu Daoud gave several personal interviews after the release of the Steven Spielberg film " Munich " revived discussions of the massacre . Abu Daoud remained unrepentant regarding his role in the Munich attacks , stating on Germany ' s " Spiegel TV " , " I regret nothing . You can only dream that I would apologize . " In an Associated Press interview , he legitimized the operation given its success , declaring , " Before Munich , we were simply terrorists . After Munich , at least people started asking who are these terrorists ? What do they want ? Before Munich , nobody had the slightest idea about Palestine . " Published works . He published his autobiography " Palestine : From Jerusalem to Munich " in French in 1999 . It was later published in English as " Memoirs of a Palestinian Terrorist " , also titled " Palestine - A History of the Resistance Movement , by the Sole Survivor of Black September " by Arcade Publishing in hardcover format . The English version is now out of print . The book is a first hand account of the rise of the Palestinian resistance movement from its inception to the attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics . Regarding the book and his subsequently being barred from returning to the West Bank , " The Israeli decision to bar my return is linked to an event which happened 27 years ago , the Munich operation , which we considered a legitimate struggle against the enemy we ( the PLO ) were fighting . " Death . On 3 July 2010 , Daoud died of kidney failure at Al - Andalus Hospital in Damascus , Syria . After a funeral service in the Al Wasim Mosque in Yarmouk with his coffin draped in the Palestinian flag , he was buried in the Martyrs Cemetery of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus . He was survived by his wife , five daughters and a son . His daughter Hana Oudeh , in the eulogy , said her father was " a great loving and sincere man whose dream was to go back to Palestine . " Representatives of various Palestinian groups , including Fatah and Islamic Jihad , attended the funeral . Shortly before his death , Oudeh said in a statement to Israelis , " Today , I cannot fight you anymore , but my grandson will and his grandsons too . " Legacy . In a condolence letter to Abu Daoud ' s family following his death , Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas wrote , " He is missed . He was one of the leading figures of Fatah and spent his life in resistance and sincere work as well as physical sacrifice for his people ' s just causes . " In 1999 , the Palestinian Prize for Culture was granted to Abu Daoud for his book " Palestine : From Jerusalem to Munich " , in which he describes how he planned and executed the Munich operation . As part of the prize , Abu Daoud was awarded 10 , 000 French francs .