Ivry couldn’t stall much longer. He had been given a direct order. If he didn’t take down the aircraft soon, he would have to explain why to Eitan and Sharon.
Tension was heightening. The minutes dragged on.
And then, five minutes before 5 o’clock, 25 minutes after the fighters took off, a phone jangled in Canary. It was the secure line that connected directly to Mossad headquarters. “Doubts have arisen,” said the voice on the line, with embarrassment. Mossad had other sources who insisted that Arafat had been nowhere near Greece, and that the man on the plane couldn’t possibly be Arafat.
In the absence of another order, the pair of F-15s continued to track the Buffalo. Ivry repeated his orders. “We’re waiting for more information. Keep eyes on the target and wait.”
At 5:23 p.m., another report came in to Canary. Sources from Mossad and AMAN said the man on the plane was Fathi Arafat, Yasir’s look-alike younger brother, a pediatrician and the founder of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. With him were 30 wounded Palestinian children, survivors of the massacre that the Lebanese Maronite Christian Phalange militia had perpetrated in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut a month before. Fathi Arafat was escorting them to Cairo for medical treatment.
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