Operation Out of the Box
On September 6th, 2007, a bit after midnight, a huge explosion occurred near Dir A-Zur in Syria. After six months, the American government announced that the explosion was in fact a nuclear reactor that was demolished from an aerial attack. For over ten years, nobody took responsibility for the attack, but of course, all fingers were pointed towards Israel.
It wasn't until March 21, 2018, that the world officially learned of the real story.
Over the years, many articles and reports about the attack were published by the foreign press, some turned out to be accurate and some not, but it took over a decade for the Israeli government to officially announce it was us. Honestly, who else could have executed such a perfect mission besides Israel?
The Attack
After the Mossad and the IDF gathered all the information, the date of the attack was set by then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi. It was believed that the nuclear reactor, which was built alongside North Korean specialists and with the help of Iran, would become active by the end of 2007, so the attack had to happen quickly.
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Nine planes took part in the attack, 4 F-15Is, 4 F-16Is, and one electronic warfare plane. Some of the planes were carrying heavy explosives (17-18 tons altogether! Can you imagine how much that is? That's more than 10 elephants), and the others' mission was to protect the convoy from enemy attacks. At 00:45, all of the bombs successfully hit their targets, and the reactor was completely demolished. Turns out, after 11 long years that we waited for the confirmation, this was one of the more successful operations the IDF and the Mossad had ever pulled off.
There were many debates in Israel after the publication, if it was a smart thing to do or not, but either way, one thing is for sure, more and more enemies now know they shouldn't mess with Israel.
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