On 7 June 1981, eight Israeli F-16A Netz fighters and six F-15A escort Eagles crossed Jordanian and Saudi airspace at treetop altitude — as low as 30 metres — flew more than 1,000 kilometres without being detected, and destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in under two minutes. One of the youngest pilots in the formation was a 26-year-old named Ilan Ramon. Twenty-two years later, he would die aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia.

A French Reactor in the Desert

Iraq purchased the Osiris-class research reactor from France in 1976, officially for peaceful research. Israel was unconvinced. The reactor was capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, and Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions were poorly disguised. Israeli intelligence tracked the construction at Al Tuwaitha, 17 kilometres southeast of Baghdad, with growing alarm. Diplomacy failed. Sabotage was attempted — in April 1979, Mossad agents are believed to have bombed reactor components in a French warehouse at La Seyne-sur-Mer. The reactor survived. An Iranian airstrike during the early weeks of the Iran-Iraq War in September 1980 damaged the site but did not destroy the core. By mid-1981, the reactor was months from activation. Israel decided to act.

The Flight

The strike package departed Etzion Air Base in the Sinai at 15:55 local time on a Sunday afternoon — chosen because the French technicians working at the reactor would be off-site. The eight F-16s carried two unguided Mk 84 2,000-pound bombs each. The six F-15s provided top cover. The route crossed Jordan and Saudi Arabia at extreme low altitude to avoid radar detection. The pilots navigated by dead reckoning and visual landmarks — no GPS existed in 1981. The formation arrived over Al Tuwaitha at 17:35, pulled up, and dove onto the reactor dome. Reportedly all 16 bombs hit the complex, though two may not have detonated. The reactor was destroyed. The strike force turned for home.

Condemnation and Vindication

The international reaction was furious. The United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the attack. The United States — which had supplied the F-16s — suspended aircraft deliveries. France demanded compensation for its destroyed reactor. Even Britain’s Margaret Thatcher called it a violation of international law. A decade later, after the Gulf War revealed the full scope of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme, the condemnation quietly evaporated. In retrospect, Operation Opera had set the template for preventive strikes against nuclear proliferation — a template that Israel would use again against Syria’s Al Kibar reactor in 2007, and that the US-Israeli coalition invoked when it struck Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025. Sources: Osprey Combat Aircraft, IAF official history, Rodger Claire, “Raid on the Sun” (2004), Air & Space Quarterly