Born on 25 November 1965, Tawfiq Chaovali from Nablus joined the Palestinian resistance as a young man in 1979. In 1983, he fought to defend Beirut before departing for Tunis with other Palestine Liberation Organization fighters. Two years later, he and other members of the resistance carried out an anti-Israeli operation at the Vienna airport in retaliation for the Israeli regime's destroying their headquarters in Tunisia and killing dozens of their members.