France arrests man linked to 1982 attack on Jewish restaurant
By Al Jazeera, April 17, 2026A man suspected of organising a deadly attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris has been arrested and placed in custody in France after being handed over by Palestinian authorities.
Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, also known as Hicham Harb, arrived in France on Thursday after Palestinian officials surrendered him to French authorities, a handover that French President Emmanuel Macron linked directly to France’s recent recognition of Palestinian statehood.
On August 9, 1982, three to five men threw a grenade into Jo Goldenberg, a Jewish-owned restaurant in the Rue des Rosiers, in Paris’s historic Marais district, before opening fire on the street outside.
Six people were killed and 22 wounded in the incident.
The attack was blamed on the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, a Palestinian armed faction that had split from the mainstream Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Adra was arrested in the West Bank by Palestinian security forces in September last year.
French antiterrorism prosecutors filed an extradition request days later, and he was flown to the Villacoublay military airbase outside Paris on Thursday, where he was taken into custody.
His lawyer described the extradition as “a serious violation of Palestinian fundamental law”.
“Forty-four years is too long,” said David Pere, a lawyer representing several families.
Two other suspects are already in French custody, and in February, France’s highest court confirmed that a trial will proceed, a ruling that had been challenged by the defendants.
Macron praised the Palestinian Authority’s cooperation, saying it reflected a commitment by President Mahmoud Abbas to work with France on counterterrorism.
Abbas had told French newspaper Le Figaro late last year that France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood in September 2025 had “created an appropriate framework” for the extradition request.
Four decades search
Following the extradition, Macron’s office thanked the Palestinian authorities in a statement for “their cooperation, their commitment to fighting terrorism, as president Abbas promised”.
The more than four decades elapsed since the attack “is too long”, said a lawyer for victims’ families, David Pere, calling for the trial to be held as quickly as possible.
The attack was attributed to the Fatah-Revolutionary Council (Fatah-RC) led by Abu Nidal, a Palestinian splinter group that broke away from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Harb is believed to have been one of the coordinators of the assault.
In February, France’s Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court, confirmed that a trial would be held over the 1982 attack against two other Palestinians held in France, one of whom has Norwegian citizenship.
Harb is also the subject of a 1988 German arrest warrant in connection with an attack at Frankfurt airport in 1985, and has been suspected by Italian investigators over an attack on a synagogue in Rome in 1982 in which a two-year-old was killed.