
Operation Show of Force: The Complete Story of the Raid in Tunis
In April 1988, Israeli commandos struck 1,500 miles from home, hitting a heavily guarded villa in Tunis to kill PLO military commander Abu Jihad. This film reconstructs the operation from its origin as retaliation for a deadly bus attack near Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, through Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin's order to Sayeret Matkal, the army's elite reconnaissance unit, working alongside Mossad intelligence officers. Commandos posed as tourists to scout the target, then landed by sea with naval and air support standing by offshore. The documentary lays out the planning meetings, the surveillance that pinned down Abu Jihad's exact routine, and the assault itself, moving room by room through the villa as the raid unfolds. Archival footage, maps, and interviews trace how a mission conducted thousands of miles from Israeli territory was expected to look impossible and was executed inside minutes. It sits among the most audacious special forces operations of the Cold War era, and the film treats the intelligence work behind it as seriously as the firefight.