In the same years in which the East Germans were expressing their solidarity with the PLO and the Arab states, the various affiliates of the PLO's Executive Committee waged a terrorist campaign from their bases in southern Lebanon against the towns and villages of northern Israel. Volleys of Katyusha rockets, attacks by terrorist squads armed with Kalashnikov assault weapons and hand grenades, as well as artillery barrages aimed specifically at civilian targets, forced the population into bomb shelters and basements for extended periods. The deaths and injuries of these civilians were not collateral damage. They were the intended purpose of the attacks. The PLO, the PFLP, and the PDFLP hoped to make normal life for Israelis so miserable that Israelis would leave and immigrants would decide not to live there. East Germany joined the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact states in the military and diplomatic support of the PLO in these years.

As had been the case for many years, the Israeli delegation's reports offered detailed accounts of the terrorist campaign. On March 28, 1977, Israel's UN Ambassador Chaim Herzog, speaking in the UN Security Council, observed that a week earlier the Palestine National Council “by a vote of 194 to 13 – the 13 thought that the resolution was not extreme enough” – voted to continue “the armed struggle” against Israel and rejected recognition of Israel as well as Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 as a basis for peace and negotiation. Herzog pointed out that the PLO Charter still “in effect called for the expulsion of the bulk of the Jewish population … calls in effect for the destruction of the State of Israel … makes the preposterous assertion that ‘the claim of a historical or spiritual tie between Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities.’” Its purpose remained the destruction of Israel, whether immediately or in stages. He derided talk of “moderates” in the PLO as a “popular fallacy.” The differences between the moderates and the extremists were only about tactics. “The negation of Israel's right to exist is a principle accepted by all groupings within the PLO.”