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ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 643

Osirak

(L-R) India's Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Iran's Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, Kazakhstan's Defense Minister Dauren Kossanov, China's Defense Minister Dong Jun, Kyrgyzstan's Defense Minister Ruslan Mukambetov, Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, and Russia's Defense Minister Andrei Belousov gather for a group photo during the Defense Ministers' Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Member States in Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province on June 26, 2025. (Photo by Pedro PARDO / AFP)
June 27, 2025, 8:49 am
Friday Focus with Lazar Berman: Israel-Iran war’s aftershocks for Russia and China
ToI’s diplomatic correspondent delves into how the war has shifted approaches and positions for Russia, China, Turkey and the big fish — Saudi Arabia
By Amanda Borschel-Dan and Lazar Berman
The IDF pilots who participated in the Operation Opera bombing of Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. (Israel Defense Force archive)
June 20, 2025, 8:44 am
Friday Focus with Lazar Berman: How Israel stopped the bomb in 1981 and 2007
ToI’s diplomatic reporter delves into two previous operations in which Israel preemptively struck budding nuclear weapons programs — in Iraq and in Syria
By Amanda Borschel-Dan and Lazar Berman
Then-prime minister Menachem Begin during a debate in the Knesset on March 20, 1979. (AP Photo/Max Nash/File)
April 16, 2023, 9:37 pm
Aides speak of ex-PM Begin’s depression, dysfunction near end of time in office
Biographer says signs of mental illness were ‘very clear’ as premier struggled with Lebanon War fallout, wife’s death; in unaired interview segment, Begin said he took pills
By Michael Horovitz
Iraqis attend the conference of peace and reclamation organised by US think-tank Center for Peace Communications (CPC) in Arbil, the capital of northern Iraq's Kurdistan autonomous region, on September 24, 2021 (Safin HAMED / AFP)
September 25, 2021, 12:23 pm
Hundreds of Iraqi notables call to join Abraham Accords, make peace with Israel
At Erbil conference, participants also urge rebuilding ties with the country’s dispossessed Jewish diaspora; normalization remains a crime under Iraqi law
By Aaron Boxerman and Lazar Berman
A color schematic of the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq, from an Israeli intelligence file, released on June 22, 2021. (Defense Ministry)
June 22, 2021, 8:47 pm
40 years after Iraq reactor raid, IDF reveals Ilan Ramon’s fears, intel sketches
Archive publishes papers relating to 1981 Osirak strike and video of famed pilot saying that mother’s Holocaust experiences inspired him despite the danger
By ToI Staff
The IDF pilots who participated in the Operation Opera bombing of Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981. (Israel Defense Force archive)
June 10, 2019, 2:32 am
38 years later, pilots recall how Iran inadvertently enabled Osiraq reactor raid
Surviving participants in Israeli airstrike that destroyed Saddam’s nuclear site gather to retrace mission that ‘remade the Middle East’
By ToI Staff
The cover page of an Israeli Foreign Ministry Facebook page, 'Israel in Iraqi dialect,' launched in May 2018 (screen shot: Facebook)
January 6, 2019, 9:47 pm
Three Iraqi delegations said to make unprecedented Israel visits, meet officials
TV report says secret taboo-busting trips arranged with goal of building basis for future ties; delegates tour Yad Vashem, meet academics, discuss Iraqi Jewish heritage
By ToI Staff
An F-16I fighter jet of the Israeli Air Force's 253rd Squadron prepares to take off during an operation to bomb a Syrian nuclear reactor in Deir Ezzor on September 5, 2007. (Israel Defense Forces)
March 21, 2018, 5:15 pm
From Osirak to Iran scientists: Other nuclear-related attacks linked to Israel
Aside from destruction of Syrian and Iraqi reactors, covert assassinations and computer viruses have also been attributed to the Jewish state
By AFP
Iraqi forces advance on September 23, 2017 to recapture the insurgent stronghold of Hawija after retaking the nearby northern town of Sharqat from the Islamic State group on the second day of a new offensive. (AFP/ AHMAD AL-RUBAYE)
September 24, 2017, 3:06 am
Iraq says it wants world’s help to build nuclear reactor
Over 35 years after Israeli strike on Osirak, oil-rich country still partially held by IS says it has rights to nuclear power under NonProliferation Treaty
By AP and ToI Staff
The Osirak reactor prior to the 1981 Israeli bombing (photo credit: Wikipedia)
June 15, 2016, 11:49 am
Iraq says it’ll sue Israel for bombing Saddam’s nuclear reactor in 1981
Official demands activation of a UN resolution that calls on Jerusalem to compensate Baghdad for strike
By Dov Lieber
Hillel Neuer
June 7, 2016, 1:31 pm
Hillel Neuer
A pilot reminisces
Watch the video, read the transcript of why the raid on Iraq’s nuclear reactor 35 years ago was worth the risk
Late IAF pilot and astronaut Ilan Ramon, interviewed shortly after 1981's Operation Opera, in which Israel destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. (Screen capture: Channel 10)
June 4, 2016, 6:34 am
35 years on, IAF pilots recall daring mission to bomb Saddam’s nuke reactor
Airmen divulge use of inside intel from Osirak, and how they ribbed rookie flier Ilan Ramon — the last and most vulnerable man in the formation of eight jets
By ToI Staff
Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani registering his candidacy for president in May 2013. (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)
October 28, 2015, 10:30 am
Former Iran leader said to admit country pursued nukes
Ex-president Rafsanjani reportedly says he and Khamenei began program to create deterrent during war with Iraq
By ToI Staff
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-foreign minister Avigdor Liberman and then-defense minister Ehud Barak at a joint press conference in Jerusalem, on Wednesday, November 21, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
August 24, 2015, 2:01 am
Iran is laughing at leaky Israel, says Liberman after new Barak tapes aired
While bashing former defense minister, Yisrael Beytenu leader also takes aim at PM for failing to tackle Iran effectively
By ToI Staff
Amir Eshel, the commander of the Israel Air Force. (Yossi Zeliger / Flash 90)
April 23, 2015, 11:06 pm
Air force chief can ‘get job done’ if order comes to hit Iran
Israel has invested ‘immense sums’ over past decade building the capacity to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities, TV report says
By ToI Staff
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