Read the book about this incredible escapade and then see the film!
In the early 1980s on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury holiday resort opened for business. Catering for divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the holidaymakers know that the staff were undercover spies, working for the Mossad – the Israeli secret service.
Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews who had been languishing in refugee camps, and the spiriting of them to Israel.
Raffi Berg’s definitive account of operation, Red Sea Spies, was written in collaboration with operatives involved in the mission, endorsed as the definitive account and includes an afterword from the commander who went on to become the head of the Mossad. This is the complete, never-before-heard, gripping tale of a top-secret and often hazardous operation.
One reviewer writes: “An amazing story of the dogged behind-the-scenes workings of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, from the late 1970s to the ’90s … From the first secret airlift until 1991, writes the author, who includes helpful maps and a list of the significant characters, 28,695 Ethiopian Jews were transported to Israel, “about 80 percent of their entire community.” Berg’s account of the operation – remarkable due to its duration, execution, and success – reads like a spy novel.”
The true story that inspired the Netflix film The Red Sea Diving Resort. The film however is only loosely based on actual events. Gad Shimron was one of the Mossad agents involved in the clandestine rescue. He wrote a first hand account of his part in the operation in Hebrew in 1998. The book was updated, translated into English, and published as Mossad Exodus – The Daring Undercover Rescue of the Lost Jewish Tribe.