" Munem Abul Muna nearly fell out of his chair. He had just found out that the blond woman who tried to kill him and his family 26 years ago was in fact a man and not just any man -- but the new prime minister of "Israel", Ehud Barak. "I am in a state of shock and still cannot believe it," said Abul Muna, 60. But whether he believes it or not it, the fact is that he was a collateral casualty; the chance victim of an "Israeli" commando raid in Beirut, on the night of April 9-10, 1973, and the raid was headed by the young Barak, disguised as a woman in a blond wig. "I can still feel the shrapnel from the bullets. But until now I did not know that it was Barak who tried to kill me and my family," said Abul Muna, proudly displaying the small black marks on his right shoulder. Abul Muna, of course, was not the "Israelis"' target. Barak and his men were after three top leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization. It was just bad luck that Abul Muna happened to be sleeping in a small ground floor room with his wife and two small children in one of the buildings struck by the "Israelis". "I jumped up in terror and looked through the window, and what I thought was a blond woman opened up into the room with a machinegun," he said. "I dived under the bed with my son while my wife covered our daughter with her body on the other bed," he added. Umm Fadi, his wife, interrupted him to add that more than 40 bullets were later recovered in the room while the elevator on the other side of the wall was completely destroyed. The operation, dubbed the "hippy" raid by the western media because of the disguise of the commandos, was one of Barak's most sensational operations in a string of military feats. The glowing reputation he built up in the army has stood him in such good stead in his political life that it helped to propel him last Monday to the prime minister's seat. For the Palestinians, who had established their power base in Lebanon after being forced out of Jordan as a result of the bloody Black September incidents in 1970, Barak's operation was a serious blow. His squad burst into three apartments in the fashionable Verdun neighborhood, shooting dead three key Palestinian officials, Mohammad Youssef Najjar, the number two man in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, Kamal Adwan, the director of Fatah underground activities in "Israel" and the occupied territories, and chief PLO spokesman Kamal Nasser. The operation also seriously destabilized Lebanon, as then Prime Minister Saeb Salam resigned few days later in protest over the Lebanese army's failure to prevent the attack. It all began that night when a large "Israeli" commando landed stealthily at a sandy beach in Beirut, jumped into rented cars parked nearby by agents who had arrived in Lebanon a few days earlier and sped off into the city where they struck seven different targets, killing a total of 25 people. The other casualties in the Verdun operation included Najjar's wife who was mown down after trying to cover her husband with her body, two Lebanese policemen, a guard and a 70-year Italian woman. "It was a merciless killing operation, a professional James Bond-style operation with explosives, machine guns and all," Abul Muna recalled. It is true that the raid occurred 26 years ago and might have been overshadowed by other horrific scenes during the long years of the civil war in Lebanon that broke out two years later, but it is striking how vivid memories of the incident still remain in Verdun for those who were there. "It was very symbolic. It was a great defeat for the Palestinians, the Lebanese and the Arabs. No wonder Barak later became prime minister," said a barber across the street. But Abul Muna is not very impressed with Barak's achievements. "If one day Barak makes peace with us as he promised when he was elected and if he then comes to Beirut, I will surely take my revenge," he said, sliding his finger meaningfully across his throat".