A Netflix thriller due on 31 July 2019, The Red Sea Diving Resort, retells how Israeli agents used a deserted holiday resort in Sudan as cover to smuggle Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
Ethiopian Jewish immigrants on their first day at an integration centre in Ashkelon, Israel, 1984 (Doron Bacher, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0) [file photo]
The trailer was released on 16 July. The film was written and directed by the Israeli filmmaker Gideon Raff, known for Homeland and Prisoners of War, and is inspired by real events, The Times of Israel reported.
Chris Evans plays Ari Levinson, a Mossad agent who leads the undercover team alongside a member of the local Ethiopian community played by Michael Kenneth Williams. The cast also includes Haley Bennett, Alessandro Nivola, Michiel Huisman, Chris Chalk, Greg Kinnear and Ben Kingsley.
Mossad ran several covert operations in the 1980s to bring out Ethiopian Jews who had fled to neighbouring Sudan after Mengistu Haile Mariam’s regime cut ties with Israel, the paper noted.
From late 1979, activists including Ferede Aklum urged Beta Israel families to cross into Sudan, from where they could be taken to Israel through Europe. In the crowded camps, refugees began dying of disease and hunger.
Between November 1984 and January 1985, Operation Moses flew about 6,500 people to Israel. A few weeks later, in Operation Joshua, the U.S. Air Force evacuated the 494 Beta Israel refugees who remained in Sudan. A larger airlift, Operation Solomon, followed from Addis Ababa in May 1991, carrying 14,325 people in 36 hours.
Sources: The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Wikipedia – Ethiopian Jews in Israel