Four heroes, two of them Palestinians whose names remain secret, the third is the Tunisian Miloud Najah Ben Nouma, and the fourth is the Syrian fighter Khalid Mohammed Akr.
They stood above the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon next to their gliders and saluted their leaders in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command before taking off in their light aircraft on the night of November 25, 1987, a night that became known in all circles as "the night of the gliders."
Operation Details
Due to mechanical difficulties, two aircraft were forced to land within Lebanese territory, while Miloud's Tunisian aircraft crashed in the buffer zone controlled by the South Lebanon Army, which was loyal to the Zionist enemy army.
Khalid was able to reach the target area, "Gibor Camp," near Beit Hilal, which housed the elite of the special forces in the occupation army at the time.
The hero landed calmly, carrying a Kalashnikov in his right hand and a silenced pistol in his left, and began moving towards the camp gate, a deadly surprise for the occupation soldiers facing a lone fighter attacking them like a lion.
Before the Syrian hero Khalid Akr was martyred, after his body was torn apart by occupation bullets, he managed to kill 37 Zionist soldiers, including wounded and killed.
After urgent communications between Israeli observation posts, occupation patrols began scanning the border to detect the presence of two other gliders. In a joint patrol with the South Lebanon Army, Miloud's crashed aircraft was found, as he hid nearby after twisting his ankle due to his violent emergency landing.
Miloud did not surrender, fighting as he should, and managed to kill 5 soldiers before he was martyred.
Why was it named Operation Qibya?
Operation "The Gliders" was named Qibya, to keep this Palestinian village entrenched in history and emotions. It is a village located in the Ramallah district, where the Zionist enemy, led by Ariel Sharon, launched a criminal aggression on the evening of October 14, 1953, resulting in 51 martyrs and 15 wounded among its residents, all civilians. Then, the gangs demolished all the houses of the small village, completely destroying it. Then, the four heroes came, after 34 years of this Zionist massacre against the Palestinians, to affirm that "no right is lost behind demands."
The Palestinian people immortalized these operations with popular songs celebrating joy and weddings, saying about the operation:
"The glider flew with its wings, oh mother, it flew
And returned to its home with determination and resolve
The glider flew, oh mother, and returned to its home
And landed in Tarshiha in the camp
It flew with a glider in the sky
And on your paths, oh my country, we sow light."
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