In the heart of the First Lebanon War, in August 1982, an employee of El Al’s marketing department, Eli Sasson, came up with a plan to rescue “captives” from Lebanon. After the bombing of the Beirut airport and the closing of the Syrian border, there was no way to fly out of Lebanon, and innocent civilians and tourists caught up in the war situation happened to be imprisoned in Lebanon against their will.
Thousands of trapped people were transported by El Al and Egged company in buses through Rosh Hankara, in an impossible task, we spent the night at the Avia Hotel and the next day they flew from Lod Airport on El Al planes to their destination. Thousands of civilians were saved thanks to the initiative of one man and the mobilization of El Al, Israel’s national carrier.
Thousands of trapped people were transported by El Al and Egged company in buses through Rosh Hankara, in an impossible task, we spent the night at the Avia Hotel and the next day they flew from Lod Airport on El Al planes to their destination. Thousands of civilians were saved thanks to the initiative of one man and the mobilization of El Al, Israel's national carrier.This activity gradually developed during the war to the opening of an El Al branch in Sidon, and for about a month and a half, twice a week, thousands of such citizens were taken to Israel. And it all started when Eli Sasson entered an Israeli car with a yellow license plate, into the heart of an enemy zone, without a weapon and in civilian clothes and organized this whole operation, The way the operation was organized was surprising. One would have expected it to start from the top, from government decisions and management decisions, but the operation was actually organized from the bottom up, from the initiative and execution of one person who swept everyone after him, without knowing that he had done a heroic deed.This affair has not received the attention it deserves in Israeli history, and in the history of the El Al company. Now Eli Sasson, who over the years became the manager of the Houston Texas branch of the El Al company, decided to write a book (together with the writer Dorit Zilberman) about the affair. The writing was finished these days and the book was published these days. 