Free Republic

Forty-five years ago, a small force of Israeli sol­diers flew south over the Red Sea, skim­ming the ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters of a string of ene­my states and res­cu­ing near­ly all of the 105 hostages at Entebbe, Uganda. The sto­ry is well-known. But what few peo­ple real­ize is that those sol­diers, many of whom served in the elite Say­eret Matkal recon­nais­sance unit (or the ​“Unit,” as the out­fit is known), met with the prime min­is­ter and defense min­is­ter and, after being dri­ven back to their base, sim­ply ate, show­ered, con­grat­u­lat­ed one anoth­er on a job well done, and went home. The post-mis­sion...

With Israel experiencing a recent spike in applications for firearms due to the current wave of terror attacks, Jewish Home MK Yinon Magal on Tuesday took to social media to post a video of himself shooting a handgun at the firing range. “I got a handgun as well,” Magal wrote. “I went to the range for the first time in 23 years. It’s clear that some things are just etched into your memory.” Magal, a veteran of the Sayeret Matkal special reconnaissance unit, worked as a journalist for 18 years in a number of outlets before being elected to Knesset...

Elite special forces are some of the best-trained and most formidable units a country can boast. They go where other soldiers fear to tread, scoping out potential threats, taking out strategic targets, and conducting daring rescue missions. These really are the best of the best. Although it's extremely difficult to rank these forces relative to one another, there are some units that rise above the rest in their track record and the fear they instill in their adversaries. These soldiers have been through rigorous training exercises designed to weed out those who can't hit their exacting standards. In a world...

Soldiers from an elite Israeli unit captured nuclear material originating in North Korea from a secret Syrian military installation before IAF jets bombed it, a report by Britain's Sunday Times wrote Saturday night, quoting "informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem."

Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raidUzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter September 23, 2007 Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem. The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say. They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in...

ISRAELI commandos from the elite Sayeret Matkal unit – almost certainly dressed in Syrian uniforms – made their way stealthily towards a secret military compound near Dayr az-Zawr in northern Syria. They were looking for proof that Syria and North Korea were collaborating on a nuclear programme. Israel had been surveying the site for months, according to Washington and Israeli sources. President George W Bush was told during the summer that Israeli intelligence suggested North Korean personnel and nuclear-related material were at the Syrian site. Israel was determined not to take any chances with its neighbour. Following the example set...

As the unit responsible for hostage situations outside of Israel, Sayeret Matkal is most notably known for its role in Operation Thunderbolt in 1976, when it helped rescue 103 Air France passengers who were being held hostage in Entebbe, Uganda. IDF soldiers entered the Entebbe airport at night, kill eight terrorists and recovered all but two hostages. The only soldier lost that night was the mission's commander, Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu. In 1972, four PLO terrorists hijacked a Sabena airliner carrying 99 passengers and 10 crew members on route from Brussels to Tel Aviv. In an mission entitled Operation Isotope, 16...

LONDON, Sept 27 (AFP) - Israel special forces are operating inside western Iraq, pinpointing locations where Iraqi missile lauchers might be positioned, the Jane's Foreign Report newsletter said in its latest issue, received Friday. The newsletter said the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit was ordered into Iraq "to find and identify places used by, or likely to be used by, Iraqi Scud missile launchers." "Our information is that neither Israel nor the United States have a clue about what, if anything, Saddam Hussein is hiding," the newsletter said, referring to the Iraqi leader. "It was this ignorance that persuaded...