Israeli Air Force commander recalls daring strike on Iran’s nuclear sites

The commander of Israel's Hatzerim Airbase base revealed how he and his pilots participated in the historic Operation Rising Lion strike against Iran’s nuclear and military sites.

Israeli Air Force (IAF) Brig.-Gen. G. recalled that the pilots had to navigate through multiple hostile territories to reach their Iranian military targets.

“You fly over Iraq and Syria, which is surreal. These are enemy countries," G. told Kan News in an interview published on Thursday. “We passed near Baghdad, crossed the Euphrates and Tigris rivers on our way back to Syria, and the navigator said to me, 'Abraham our forefather left from here.'"

The IAF commander described the moment when the Israeli pilots saw Iran’s nuclear facilities beneath them.

"We see the nuclear facilities with our own eyes beneath us as we bomb them," G. revealed. “We see the surface-to-surface missile sites and also the fire and smoke plumes we left behind with every strike.”

More than 200 IAF fighter jets took part in the large-scale opening strike against Iran in the early morning hours of June 13. G. said the pilots drew inspiration from flying alongside their fellow airmen during the historic operation.

“On the radio, you hear the voices of the comrades, the squadron commanders, a group of lions leading the fighters toward the missions and targets. When this group assembles together in the air, there is a feeling that no one will be able to stop us," he said.

Israel delivered a devastating blow to Iran’s nuclear and military sites. The IAF and Mossad foreign intelligence agency eliminated the majority of Iran’s top military leaders within the first 24 hours of the operation, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami. The commander of Iran’s armed forces, Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, his deputy Maj.-Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid and Air Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh were also eliminated, alongside other top IRGC officials.

Israeli political and military leaders stressed that the goal of the preemptive strike was to eliminate the twin threats to the very existence of the Jewish state posed by Iran’s nuclear and missile programs . Though unprecedented in both scope and scale, Israel's Operation Rising Lion was conducted under the framework of the Begin Doctrine – named after former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who declared that Israel would never allow its mortal enemies to acquire nuclear weapons.

In June 1981, Begin ordered the IAF to strike Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor outside of Baghdad after the Iraqi dictator had threatened to wipe Israel off the map and sought to develop nuclear weapons.

In 2007, Israel also struck a covert Syrian nuclear reactor after discovering that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was seeking to develop nuclear weapons with assistance from North Korea.