Inside Operation 007: The Mossad Heist That Shaped the Six-Day War

How did spies decide a six-day war? Inside Mossad's MiG-21 heist and Operation Moqed. From the maze-shaped intelligence memorial in Tel Aviv to clandestine briefings in Washington, this episode of Secrets of War follows how Aman and the Mossad turned human intelligence into battlefield dominance. With Meir Amit at the helm, agents penetrated Arab militaries, mapped Syrian guns on the Golan, and hatched Operation 007: persuade Iraqi deputy squadron commander Munir Redfar to fly his MiG-21 to Israel. On 16 August 1966 he slipped out on a 600-mile zigzag, landed safely, and within hours the CIA examined the first flyable MiG-21 in the West. Israeli pilots trained against it, narrowing a lethal gap. As 1967 escalated, Soviet disinformation about Israeli moves on Syria stoked crisis. Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser pushed UN forces out of Sinai and closed the Straits of Tiran, while Washington urged delay. After Amit’s talks with CIA Director Richard Helms and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Israel concluded that a first strike was unavoidable. At 7:45 a.m. on 5 June, Operation Moqed launched. Flying low over the Mediterranean, nearly the entire Israeli Air Force hit Egyptian bases between routine patrols. By afternoon, 419 Arab aircraft were destroyed, including 90 percent of Egypt’s fleet on the ground. Intelligence from sources like agent Wolfgang Lotz fixed the timing. Simultaneously, armored columns surged into Sinai; detailed reports on Egyptian positions guided the thrust and accelerated the retreat toward the Suez Canal. Jordan entered the fight; despite an Israeli warning, King Hussein’s Legion opened fire. Street-to-street combat ended with General Mordechai Gur’s radio call, The Temple Mount is in our hands. On 8 June, victory was marred by the mistaken Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, which killed 34 American sailors and remains disputed. By 10 June, Israel held the Golan Heights using data first provided by executed Mossad operative Elie Korn and others. In six days, Israel seized Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Heights, tripling the land it controlled and inheriting the unresolved burden of nearly one million Palestinians. Intelligence had delivered a stunning triumph, and a new, more complicated Middle East. #SixDayWar #Mossad #OperationMoqed #MiG21 #IsraeliIntelligence #GolanHeights #USS_Liberty