High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Coastal Road massacre of 1978 was an attack involving the hijacking of a bus on Israel`s Coastal Highway in which 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed, and 71 were wounded. The attack was planned by Abu Jihad and carried out by the PLO faction Fatah. The plan was to seize a luxury hotel in Tel Aviv and take tourists and foreign ambassadors hostage in order to exchange them for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The timing was aimed at scuttling peace talks between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. However, due to a navigation error, the attackers ended up 40 miles (64 km) north of their target, and were forced to find alternative transportation to their destination.