Japanese terrorist Kozo Okamoto, who carried out a deadly attack on an Israeli airport on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1972, died on Thursday in Beirut aged 78, the terror group said.

In a statement, the PFLP mourned “militant comrade Kozo Okamoto… who passed away today” in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group.

The group lauded his “unwavering support for the Palestinian cause.”

Okamoto was part of a three-man commando from the Japanese Red Army, a far-left militant group, that killed 26 people on May 30, 1972, at Lod airport — now known as Ben Gurion Airport — near Tel Aviv in an attack planned by the PFLP, which is classified as a terror group by Israel, the US, the European Union and Japan.

Okamoto, along with Tsuyoshi Okudaira and Yasuyuki Yasuda, arrived in Israel with fake passports on an Air France flight.

Prior PFLP hijackings had led to increased passenger screening by airlines, but inspection of check-in luggage was still rare. The bloodbath at the airport later set off a review of global security standards in the aviation industry.

Okamoto and his two accomplices passed through immigration untroubled, picked up their baggage from the carousel, and whipped out assault rifles and grenades.

The three then opened fire and threw........

© The Times of Israel