The four veteran fighter pilots, who took part in Operation Opera that bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, recently attended a festive event of the new pilot course graduates in the Israel Air Force.

“On this plane, number 107,” recalls Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin, “I took off through Jordan and Saudi Arabia en route to Baghdad on June 7, 1981… This plane is very dear to my heart,” he added, pointing to the fighter jet that carried him in that heroic operation 40 years ago.

Brig. Gen. Relik Shafir recalled that six months prior to the operation, the eight mission pilots were secretly gathered, signed on a top-secret document, and were told that the target that they have been practicing on for a long period of time was no other than the Iraqi nuclear reactor.

“I was in shock. For two reasons,“ Shafir relays. “I did not even know there was a reactor, and Iraq seemed to me then as the passageway to the dark mountains. It was a shock that lasted 10 seconds. Since then we practiced once in two weeks.”

NEWSREAL wants to solute these pilots and their bravery that preserved Israel’s freedom and independence ever since!