Quote:The attack squadron consisted of eight F-16As, each with two unguided Mark-84 2,000-pound delay-action bombs. A flight of six F-15As was assigned to the operation to provide fighter support. The F-16 pilots were Ze'ev Raz, Amos Yadlin, Dobbi Yaffe, Hagai Katz, Amir Nachumi, Iftach Spector, Relik Shafir, and Ilan Ramon. Raz led the attack, was later decorated by the Chief of Staff for his leadership. Ramon, who was the youngest pilot to participate in the operation, later became the first Israeli astronaut and died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster.

On 7 June 1981, at 15:55 local time (12:55 GMT), the operation was initiated. The Israeli planes left Etzion Airbase, flying unchallenged in Jordanian and Saudi airspace. To avoid detection, the Israeli pilots conversed in Saudi-accented Arabic while in Jordanian airspace and told Jordanian air controllers that they were a Saudi patrol that had gone off course. While flying over Saudi Arabia, they pretended to be Jordanians, using Jordanian radio signals and formations. The Israeli planes were so heavily loaded that the external fuel tanks that had been mounted on the planes were exhausted in-flight. The tanks were jettisoned over the Saudi desert.
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In 2012, it was similarly argued by scholars at the RAND Corporation that an "Israeli or American attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would make it more, not less, likely that the Iranian regime would decide to produce and deploy nuclear weapons. Such an attack would also make it more, not less, difficult to contain Iranian influence."

Following Desert Storm, Dick Cheney thanked the Israeli mission commander for the "outstanding job he did on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981". While many scholars debate the value of the bombing, Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons at the outbreak of the Gulf War, and, according to Cheney, the bombing made Desert Storm easier.
Operation Opera Israel airstrike on Iraq nuclear reactor 1981