The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics

1972 Summer Olympics

The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....

 in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 in southern West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

, when members of the Israeli Olympic team

Israel at the 1972 Summer Olympics

Israel competed at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, which began on August 26. On September 5 and 6, eleven members of the Israeli team were captured and murdered by terrorists. The remainder of the team left Munich the day after the conclusion of the horrific event Israel competed...

 were taken hostage

Hostage

A hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...

 and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September

Black September (group)

The Black September Organization was a Palestinian paramilitary group, founded in 1970. It was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of eleven Israeli athletes and officials, and fatal shooting of a West German policeman, during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, their most publicized event...

. Members of Black September contended that Yasir Arafat's Fatah

Fatah

Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...

 organization secretly endorsed the operation. Fatah, however, disputed this. Black September called the operation "Ikrit and Biram

Kafr Bir'im

Kafr Bir'im, also Kefr Berem , was an Arab Christian village in Palestine located south of the Lebanese border and northwest of Safed. The village was situated above sea level, with a church overlooking it at an elevation of . The church was built on the ruins of an older church destroyed in an...

", after two Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 villages whose inhabitants were killed or expelled by the Haganah

Haganah

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...

 in 1948.

By the end of the ordeal, the kidnappers had killed eleven Israeli athletes and coaches

Coach (sport)

In sports, a coach is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople.-Staff:...

 and a West German police officer

Police officer

A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...

.