The 1968 Israeli raid on Lebanon, code-named Operation Gift (Hebrew: מבצע תשורה), was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Special Forces operation on Beirut International Airport on the night of December 28 - 29, 1968. The commandos were from the Army's elite Sayeret Matkal and destroyed 13 civilian airplanes belonging to Middle East Airlines (MEA) in response to an attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).[1] There were no casualties reported.[2]
Background
On 22 July 1968, militants hijacked an El Al plane on its way from Rome to Tel Aviv, and forced the pilot to land in Algiers. About four months later, in the early afternoon of 26 December, two militants who had arrived in Athens from Beirut International Airport, fired at an El Al plane about to take off from the Athens Airport. As a result, an Israeli citizen was killed, a stewardess was wounded, and the plane damaged. The spokesman of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), whose headquarters was in Beirut, announced that the operation was carried out by his organization.
In response, IDF commandos took over part of Beirut Airport and destroyed 13 aircraft belonging to Middle East Airlines (MEA).[3]
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