The Israeli Air Force
*Operation Tarnegol, 1969. During the War of Attrition, the IDF detected an advanced Soviet P-12 radar system inside Egypt on the Gulf of Suez. With Mirage jets flying cover, heliborne Israeli paratroops hijacked the entire radar, weighing 7 tons, and brought it and 4 Egyptian prisoners back to Israel.
*An extraordinary fray with the Red Air Force in the Summer of 1970. The USSR intervened on behalf of its Egyptian allies with an influx of 20,000 Soviet pilots, aircrew and anti-aircraft personnel, to try to stop unchecked IAF operations over Egypt. The situation escalated until July 30, when IAF Phantoms and Mirages tangled with dozens of Russian-piloted MiG-21s. Five MiGs were downed, without a single Israeli loss. The victorious Israeli pilots at first painted Egyptian flags on their fuselages, until 3 months later when the story broke in a British newspaper. The Egyptian flags were then replaced with red stars.
*Yom Kippur War, 1973. Reeling from a surprise attack, the IAF recovered and regained a regional air superiority it has never lost. Its retaliation included an extensive attack on the Syrian General Command in downtown Damascus.
*July 3, 1976, the commando raid on Entebbe. The IDF pioneered the type of combined-arms covert attack that was eventually to break the back of the wave of terrorism that swept the world in the 1970s. By showing that the IAF could carry the fight to anyone who attacked Israeli citizens anywhere in the world, the state of Israel gave harsh instruction to terrorists that they could no longer act with impunity.
*Operation Osirak, 7 June, 1981. A more high-tech danger to the state of Israel was beginning to form in the Middle East. The nuclear reactor near Baghdad was identified as the greatest threat to Israel's existence, and so Israel was willing to go to great risk to take it out. IAF F-15s and F-16s passed through Saudi Arabia and Jordan to carry out the only air attack on a nuclear power plant in history. The raid was utterly successful, with no IAF losses.
*The Peace for the Galilee War, Summer, 1982. Worsening confrontations between Israeli interests and the PLO resulted in unrestricted artillery shelling on Northern Israeli settlements. The IAF was tasked to clear all terrorists encampments in Lebanon within artillery range of the settlements of the Galilee. The fight quickly turned into yet another between Israel and Syria, and early in the war Israeli warjets destroyed 19 Syrian
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