Israel's tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi was assassinated shortly before 7 am (GMT+2) on Wednesday, 17 October 2001 at the former Hyatt Regency Hotel in Jerusalem by a squad of Palestinians acting on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militant organization.

Ze'evi's assassins fled the scene and hid for a time in the Mukataa compound in Ramallah under the auspices of Yasser Arafat.

An agreement was eventually reached during Operation Defensive Shield, in which Israeli forces besieged the Mukataa compound.

On 14 March 2006, the American and British guards left the Jericho jail, charging that the Palestinian Authority was not sticking to the agreement reached with Israel four years earlier.

[1] As a result, the PFLP began gathering detailed intelligence information on Ze'evi's whereabouts and schedule, and found out that he had a permanent room in the Hyatt Regency hotel in Jerusalem, located on the border between the neighborhoods of French Hill and Mount Scopus.

[7] At 6:00 am, one of the assassins, Hamdi Quran, went to the dining room of the hotel to make sure that Minister Ze'evi would indeed be there in accordance with his routine schedule.

[8] When Quran noticed the minister was in the dining hall, he immediately went back to the room where the assassins were staying and updated his associates.

As a result, in February 2002, Arafat ordered to arrest Ze'evi's assassin squad members and imprison them in the Jericho prison.

On 14 March 2006, the American and British guards left the Jericho jail, charging that the Palestinian Authority was not sticking to the agreement reached with Israel four years earlier.

In February 2013, one of the gunmen involved in the murder, Majdi Al-Rimawi, was named a "honorary resident" of Bezons, a French city located 10 miles northwest of Paris.

"[27][28][29] Lesparre was sharply criticized by Moshe Kantor, who stated that "It is inconceivable that an elected official can be so ignorant as to call a cold-blooded murderer a victim."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also criticized the decision, stating that it was "humanly outrageous to honor a convicted murderer, no political view can justify it.