On 11th March 1978, a Fedayeen unit of 11 people made their way silently onto the shores of north Tel Aviv on rubber dinghies to avoid detection by any surface monitoring radars in an operation devised by Abu Jihad that was undertaken by PLO faction Fatah.Picture of the hijacked coastal bus that was preserved and to this day on display as memoirs of terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.
There they killed an American tourist then hijacked a loaded bus on the Haifa Coastal Highway and forced the driver to proceed to Tel Aviv. During the journey they open fire on cars and passerbys leading to a high speed chase by the IDF which ended at a road block in Herzliya where the terrorist blew up the bus that left 38 civilians dead, 71 wounded and ended in a shootout where 9 terrorist were killed, though it is not known of the other 3 terrorist nor the actual casualties of car passengers or passerbys that was fired upon, this direct confrontation by PLO militants led to a large scale Israeli reprisals leading to the Lebanon War three days later.
Some of todays 27-10-2007 updating is some war strategies in Chronology of 1973 Yom Kippur War in Chapter 4
On March 14th 1978 PM Menachem Begin launched Operation Litani with Defense Minister Ariel Sharon by his side where a force of 25,000 IDF soldiers crossed the Lebanese border to root out and push the PLO militant groups out of southern Lebanon that has rooted its influence in that area of Lebanese territory. Which according to Israeli Intelligence report, numbering to between 15,000 to 18,000 PLO militias was camped in different locations in southern Lebanon.
Five days after the commencement of Operation Litani on March 19th of 1978, IDF military seized a security belt ten kilometers deep into southern Lebanon but because of a military direction given by the top military brass to secure the area, pushed north wards and closing in until Lebanon south of Litani River was under total Israeli control with the expectations of setting back the military capability of PLO 5 years back.
(Added on 29-10-2007)
On March 19th of 1978, the UN Security hastily enforced Resolution 425 to stabilize the tension of interest in the international arena, called for the full withdrawal of IDF forces from Lebanese territory. During which time the Knesset under authority of PM Menachem Begin debated over authorizing the enforced Resolution 425, the IDF stayed stationed in the Lebanese occupied territory until officially declared by their superiors. Operation Litani was officially ended on 21st of March 1978.
With the invasion of Operation Litani on Lebanon, IDF destroyed numerous PLO militia training base camps and houses that was used as PLO shadow huts yet the general objective of IDF failed as the IDF could not defeat the PLO which was shortly able to regroup and reorganize into splinter cells.
On March 22nd 1978, withdrawal of the occupied forces the IDF, was only minimal, to put into place a security buffer that the IDF wanted to be enforced.
A few months after the Security Resolution 425 was declared by the UN Security Council, it was not until June 21st of 1978 that the IDF completed the full withdrawal of operations from southern Lebanon according to Resolution 425. The actual reason for the occupation and lengthy withdrawal was to prevent the PLO from continually using southern Lebanon. The stationing of IDF troops was to be a deterrent against PLO militias from launching bombing raids or katyushas and terrorist cross over from the borders of north Israel.
UN resolution 425 was only enforced on June 21st of 1978 as the resolution does not guarantee any anti-terrorist attacks on Israeli territory.
(Added 30-10-2007)
After consolidating political authority in Israel politics, in 1981 Begin's administration began promoting nationalist agenda which led to embarking the expansion of Jewish settlements in Gaza Strip which was officially Israel's territory in the June 1978 Camp David Accords Israeli occupied territories where make shifts of Palestinian origins was cleared to make way for building houses and areas habitable for the immigrated Jews from foreign countries in already constricted and overflowing Israeli population areas which was never fully dissolved by the Israeli government because of land constrains.
The nationalist reclaimation agenda was hijacked with mounting terrorist attacks from Southern Lebanon as the views of the PLO militias regarding the expansion of the Jewish settlements, the 1981 nationalist agenda as illegal. Though the skirmishes may be considered small, they were often repulsed by IDF commando squads.
Back in the 1960's, Iraqis has shown interest in nuclear technology and experimented with it unsuccessfully. It was only under Saddam Hussein in the 1970's that nuclear technology began to take root. In early 1981, with french cooperation, the nuclear technology was perfected invoking a tense situation despite earlier diplomatic missions by Israelis, the french had no intention of halting the technology transfer.
It was in 7th June 1981, that PM Menachem Begin launched Operation Osiraks that consisted of a formation of 8 F16 and 6 F15's IDF fighters with a weapons load of two 2,000 pound bombs and external fuel tanks that was directed at the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak near Baghdad to prevent Iraqis from procuring and developing nuclear weapons programs obtained with French technology that can be used against the Jewish nation.
Operation Osiraks was extremely dangerous seeing that the aircrafts had to fly over 1,000 kms to reach their objectives from their air base. Despite the distance, most of the travelling must be done over Jordanian and Iraqi airspace making it impossible for air to air refueling. Any enemy aircraft encounter would mean disastrous as the maximum fuel load is only enough to complete the mission and fly back to base.
Why I left Home 1st-5th November 2007 - Author
(Added 08-11-2007)
Then the inevitable happened, one of the F16's strayed off course and flew directly over Aqaba a Jordanian city where residents saw the aircraft clearly, thereby breaking the element of surprise by the jet fighters......
The fighters broke off formation and divided into two groups with the first, to act as decoys to draw any approaching enemy aircraft from engaging the main group.
The main group of bombers would then decend to 100 feet ground level in the hope of evading enemy aircraft and ground radar until they were 13 miles from the reactor, the jets soared above 3,000 feet and dived towards their targets in 5 second intervals. 16 bombs each weighting 2,000 were released by the 8 F16s at the reactor out of which 2 bombs failed to detonate resulting only a damaged reactor which was put it out of commision for a period.
In the bombing raid a french engineer and ten Iraqi soldiers was killed. As the reactor was only damaged, France offered to repair it but backed out in 1984. The US though profited from Israel Operation Osirak that Iraq was not able to possess nuclear weapons, fired harsh outrage and outlined Article 51 of UN Charter.
The worse was that US authority took advantage of the encroachment by Israel as an excuse for the cancellation of a shipment of aircraft promised which has already been paid by Israel without any compensation. In terms of the Law of Trade and Agreement, the cancellation of the shipment is illegal as there was never a clause in the agreement of a condition leading to the cancellation of the contract.
On the reason why this case was not taken to the World Court by the Israel Knesset is contradictory to the interest of the nation of Israel, a nation always struggling in the midst of hostilities.
Seeing that this important section concerning international conspiracies against Israel has always been on the agenda, I completed the documentation of Operation Osirak and the aftermath.
Biography of the most dangerous Defense Minister Israel ever had
Will end here 07-12-2007 until few months Google Ads Payment arrive.
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