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Hotel Flora: Revisiting The Hotel Where Majed Abu Sharar Was Assassinated • Sama Abu Sharar Stars and Spies in Rome ...	ROME 1981

 “Stars and spies. A sweet life and secrets. The glare of fame and dark conspiracies in the 1980s; a bloody attack. Welcome to Via Veneto, the Grand Hotel Flora.” With these words, Italian journalist Paolo Foschi opened his 2007 article in “Corriere della Sera” about Rome’s famous Hotel Flora.

Let us step back in time: The setting is Hotel Flora in Rome; the time is past midnight on Friday, 9 October, 1981; the event is the assassination of an Algerian man named Abbas Zeitouni—who turned out to be Palestinian leader Majid Abu Sharar, using an alias for security reasons.

This marked the beginning of my attempt to understand why Majid chose to stay at that hotel without any special security measures or an escort, while the other members of the delegation, which had arrived from Beirut to attend a global conference in solidarity with Palestinian writers and journalists, were staying at the Ergife Palace Hotel.

Majid had a room booked under his real name at the Ergife Palace, yet a room was also reserved for him under an alias at the Hotel Flora, where he actually stayed. During a session in which I recorded his testimony about Majid, a member of the delegation, the late journalist and writer Ghattas Sweis, known as Nazih Abu Nidal, revealed to me that he had met Majid in the lobby of the Ergife Palace while waiting for their rooms to be ready; their relationship at the time was strained due to their differing political stances. According to Abu Nidal, Majid acted as if nothing was amiss and offered him his own room. "He embraced me warmly, and we chatted briefly before asking me to use his hotel room until mine was ready, explaining that he would not be staying at the same hotel as us," Abu Nidal said.

He added that he found this strange; when he asked Majid about it, Majid replied that he would be staying at the "Flora" under an alias for security reasons. Abu Nidal admitted he was uneasy about the idea of Majid staying at a different hotel. Like others, he repeatedly wondered about the reason and who was behind that fatal decision.

In the book *Majid Abu Sharar: A Journey Not Yet Ended*—compiled by the late Palestinian writer and journalist Abdul Aziz al-Sayyid—the late Palestinian novelist Rashad Abu Shawar states that the "Flora" Hotel was "the first on a list of hotels distributed by Fatah’s security apparatus to its leaders and cadres, warning them against staying there because the hotels were dens for the Mossad and the Zionists."

The Mysterious Hotel
The name "Flora" remained etched in my mind for years, prompting me to begin researching the history of the hotel, the surrounding area, and other details related to the assassination. In this regard, the article by Fuschi served as a crucial starting point that reinforced my suspicions. The hotel is situated on the famous Via Vittorio Veneto, just meters away from an Israeli tourist office that had been damaged by a bomb blast a few days prior to Majid’s assassination, according to The Washington Post.

Fuschi’s article, which chronicles the hotel’s history, features a headline and a sub-headline that encapsulate that past. He titled the piece "The Iconic Location: The Mastroianni and Ekberg Hotel," adding the subtitle: "The 'Flora’s' Golden Age with Fellini—but also Nazi security forces and an attack on a PLO leader."
As the title suggests, Fuschi discusses both the dark and golden eras of the hotel. The building was originally constructed in 1905 by the Borghese family but was later sold—due to financial difficulties—to a German national named Krumgel. Two years later, Krumgel opened the establishment as "Pension Flora," with the assistance of architect Andrea Vecchi-Bossi.

According to the Italian journalist, the hotel hosted celebrities from the worlds of politics, the arts, and sports during its golden age—figures such as Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, Swedish actress Anita Ekberg, American actress Elizabeth Taylor, American boxer Muhammad Ali, and French writer and poet Paul Valéry, who described the hotel as a "sweet place for contemplation." Yet, during its heyday, it was not merely a haven for the famous; its corridors also witnessed the creation of works of art.

What of the hotel’s dark and mysterious history? According to Fuschi, the Gestapo occupied the Hotel Flora during the Nazi occupation. While it was not used as a torture site like other hotels in the Italian capital, its corridors served as a den for spies, informants, and unsavory characters.

Fuschi notes that following World War II, the establishment transitioned from the "Flora Inn" to the "Grand Hotel." The Italian journalist adds that the hotel found itself at the center of a sensational event on 8 October, 1981, when a sophisticated pressure-activated bomb planted beneath the bed in Room 320 killed a guest registered as "Abbas Zaitouni." This proved to be a false identity and alias; the victim was actually Majid Abu Sharar, a senior official within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Foschi adds that "Palestinians accused the Israeli intelligence agency (Mossad) of being behind the operation," noting that "investigations focused on the possibility of suspects being inside the hotel, but the inquiries hit a dead end, and the case remained shrouded in mystery. It is the story of the 'Flora' Hotel and Italy's secrets," according to Foschi.

Two significant points in Foschi’s account of Majed’s assassination stand out. The first is the date of the incident; it is generally understood that the assassination took place on October 9th, not the 8th as the Italian journalist stated. The second is the room number, 320, where he claimed Majed was staying; we discovered years later that this was not, in fact, the room where Majed was assassinated - a detail we will address later.
Foschi concludes his intriguing article by noting that the hotel is now owned by the Naldi family, the former owners of the Napoli football club. This historic establishment remains a premier global destination, having joined the Marriott hotel chain under a franchise agreement. "Yet, one thing has not changed: The place remains a hub for clandestine meetings. Locals familiar with the neighborhood’s atmosphere say that beautiful young women—glamorous in high heels and short skirts—frequent the hotel every night." The Italian journalist wonders if they are all tourists.

Foschi was not the only journalist to take an interest in the assassination. According to a chapter in the book Majed Abu Sharar: A Journey Not Yet Over, which focused on the coverage of the case by the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anba, another Italian journalist named Paolo Di Carlo, who worked for the newspaper Il Messaggero, followed the investigation from start to finish but also hit a dead end.

Di Carlo, who had met Majed at the Ergife Palace Hotel the day before the assassination, gathered numerous leads and attempted to connect them. However, these threads were severed due to the removal of certain investigators from the case and the assassinations of Kamal Hussein and Nazih Matar. The two men were aides to Nimr Hammad, the PLO representative in Rome, and - according to Di Carlo - possessed information regarding the case.

Sara at the "Flora"
I had long harbored a desire to visit the hotel and speak with the staff there, yet something within me always held me back, despite having visited Italy on several occasions. I do not know if this stemmed from a resignation to reality; the very idea of entering the hotel where Majed met his end still terrifies me. It may be a fear of revisiting the emotions that overwhelmed me on that fateful day, emotions I have tried to bury.
At the onset of the 2023 war of extermination against Gaza, I was contacted by my relative, the storyteller Sara Abu Sharar. She was visiting Italy to participate in the “Raccontami una storia” Festival—a storytelling event held in the mountain village of Farfa, located an hour and a half from Rome.

Sara told me then that although she had visited Italy before, this was her first time in Rome. “I accepted the festival’s invitation immediately, intending to visit the Flora Hotel, where my father’s cousin was killed,” Sarah explained. Sarah felt anxious and queasy as she headed toward the hotel, unsure of what awaited her there. I empathized with her and felt as though I was accompanying her on the journey to the Flora. She hesitated to enter the hotel, which she described as luxurious, and ducked into a nearby high-end shop to steel herself for the visit; she finally succeeded after several failed attempts.

I previously advised her to tell them directly that her relative had been assassinated at the hotel and that she wished to visit the room where he was killed. Sarah entered and sat in the lobby for a long time before finally gathering the courage to approach the reception desk. "This might seem very strange to you, but let me introduce myself. I am Sarah Abu Sharar. My father’s cousin, Majid Abu Sharar, was assassinated in your hotel in 1981. I was wondering if I could see the room where it happened?" she asked one of the staff members.
The young employee smiled and welcomed her warmly before saying: "That is incredible. Just yesterday, we were talking among ourselves about the two assassinations that took place in the hotel, one of them involving your father’s cousin, and here you are today." He noted that Rome has the highest number of hotels in the world that have been the sites of assassinations. The staff insisted on inviting Sarah to lunch while they waited for the hotel manager to arrive.

Manager Flavia Cassini offered her heartfelt condolences to the family and expressed regret that the assassination had taken place at the hotel. She clarified that the room where the killing occurred was neither Room 320—as "Fushi" had claimed in his article—nor Room 319, as "Carlo" had stated in his investigations, nor Room 230, as the reception staff had suggested. Instead, it was Room 420 on the fourth floor—a room that no longer exists following the hotel's renovation; the room closest to that original location today is Room 319.
Since the room was occupied that day, the manager asked Sarah to return the following day to see the view Majid’s room had overlooked, assuring her that they would keep the room vacant until her visit, recognizing the importance of the matter to the victim's family. Before leaving, Sarah asked if any staff members who had been working at the hotel at the time of the assassination were still there; Cassini confirmed that none of them remained.

Sarah returned to the "Flora" the next day. The hotel manager welcomed her warmly and escorted her to the room adjacent to the one where Majid had stayed, then left to give her some privacy, emphasizing that she should take all the time she needed. "I examined the entire room: the desk, the bed, the wardrobe, and above all, the view of the garden; it was an emotionally charged experience," Sarah said.
“I tried to put myself in Majed’s shoes to sense the place and experience it in all its dimensions. As I left, the corridor seemed long and desolate; I took the elevator down, spent some time in the lobby, and then thanked the manager before leaving the hotel.”

Before Sarah left, the manager apologized for not having sufficient information, given that the entire staff had changed. However, she promised to contact a former employee, a cleaner who had been working there that day, to see if he had any further details, and she provided her own phone number for Sarah to call. Sarah left Italy a few days after visiting the hotel and returned to her home in Canada without ever calling back.

Rome: An Open Book
During a visit to Italy in the year 2000, at the invitation of Italian leftists, Rome was the first stop for Marwan Abdel-Aal, a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In those early days, the city struck him as “an open book, yet I didn’t know where to begin reading it,” as he put it. His Italian comrades urged Abdel-Aal to be cautious in his movements and not to take their security measures lightly, “stressing that the enemy was capable, through its agents, of committing a dirty deed, even in a place far away.” Abdel-Aal admits he did not initially take his comrades’ warnings seriously, but his comrade Silvano brought him face-to-face with “reality at the metro station.”

Silvano pointed to the Hotel Flora and said quietly: “Do not underestimate the enemy... they reached here, too,” before telling him that the Palestinian leader Majid Abu Sharar had been assassinated in that very hotel. Abdel-Aal said his heart was pounding as he approached the entrance. At the last moment, he stepped back.
“The name alone was enough to summon the one who was gone. Standing there, I began to recite to Silvano the words of Mahmoud Darwish from his elegy for Majid: ‘Good morning, Majid... Good morning and the white... / Rise, drink my coffee, and stand up / For my funeral has arrived. And Rome is like a pistol / All of God’s earth is Rome, O stranger far from home / O flesh covering the storefronts like a pillow.’”

“I did not know then why a Palestinian supporter was standing before a hotel in Rome, reciting verses for a Palestinian martyr who had passed through that very spot. But I knew that the poem had restored the voice of the departed and the memory of the place; and that what had been written about Majid years ago still held the power to warn us about both the present and the future,” Abdel-Aal said.

In her remarks about Majid, writer and playwright Raeda Taha revealed that she and her late husband, Suhail Jid'oun, had stayed at the Hotel Flora during one of their trips to the Italian capital; by coincidence, they were assigned the very room where Majid had been assassinated. Neither Raeda nor Suhail knew that the Flora was the hotel where Majid had been killed. When a Palestinian friend living in Rome informed them, Raeda was horrified and immediately demanded to change rooms—a request that was granted.

The Flora Hotel was the final stop for Majid; he was assassinated there 45 years ago in a room overlooking the famous Villa Borghese gardens. The circumstances of the assassination and the crime scene remain shrouded in mystery, with many questions left unanswered.

As Fouchi noted, the hotel may have changed owners and undergone renovations, but one thing remains constant: The venue continues to be a destination for secret meetings where the proceedings remain unknown to the outside world. Sarah was well aware of these facts when she remarked: "Majid met a truly tragic end, yet he departed just as any writer or artist would wish—dying in an enchanting setting, surrounded by such beauty." How I wish I could believe her.
© Sama Abu Sharar 2026

This article originally appeared in Al Quds Al Arabi. Sama Abu Sharar is a professional journalist, writer and translator with skills in three languages: Arabic, French and English. She is currently residing in Beirut and writes on different Palestinian and Lebanese issues for publications such as the online Palestine Chronicle and the Al Quds Al Arabi, a prestigious Arabic language daily newspaper published in London. Her articles appear in translated form in crossfirearabia.com

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