 This account was challenged in a book by Aaron J. Klein, who claims that Al-Gashey died of heart failure in the 1970s, and that Safady was killed by Christian Phalangists in Lebanon in the early 1980s.However, in July 2005, PLO veteran Tawfiq Tirawi told Klein that Safady, whom Tirawi claimed as a close friend, was "as alive as you are.