Shimon Peres wishes Queen Elizabeth happy 90th birthday
Shimon Peres wishes Queen Elizabeth happy 90th birthdayScreenshot

Reserve Major-General Amiram Levin, who was responsible for IDF elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal's operational planning during Operation Entebbe, attacked the late former president Shimon Peres on television this weekend.

Peres was Defense Minister in 1976, when the Israeli army carried out one of its greatest feats, the famed July 4th rescue known as Operation Entebbe that freed 102 Jewish hostages whose plane was hijacked to Uganda by Arab terrorists. The prime minister's older brother Yoni Netanyahu, who commanded the unit that carried out the operation was killed by a sniper's bullet.

"He never met Yoni Netanyahu. His only part in the operation was that he served as Defense Minister. Peres never met Yoni Netanyahu, he's a liar and he had no part in Operation Entebbe," Levin told Ayala Sasson in an interview on Israel's TV program Shishi.

"I've known him for years, as both Prime Minister and Defense Minister, and as a person, too. The story with Yoni, he never met him and never spoke to him, yet he said that Yoni 'gave him confidence.'"

Levin attacked Peres for blaming then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for opposing the operation, when in fact he had supported it.

"I was present during that conversation, that critical government discussion. [Peres] is a trickster, he played no part in the operation. His only connection is that he was serving as Defense Minister, but in fact he did absolutely nothing," Levin emphasized.

"Peres was just a pipeline, [then-IAF Commander} Benny Peled was absolutely terrific - but Peres wrote the history and he was a liar," concluded Levin, decrying what he called the "industry" of praising Peres after his passing.

Peres' funeral was attended by thousands, including President Obama, Prince Charles of England and other important diplomatic and international figures.