4 February – Israeli jet fighters intercept a Libyan civil aircraft over Cyprus and force it to land in Israel.[1]
11 February – After a period of imprisonment of nine years in a Siberianlabor camp, the Soviet-Jewish refusenik and human rights advocate Natan Sharansky and three low-level Western spies are exchanged for Czech spies held in the US, a Soviet spy, a Polish spy and a GDR spy (the latter three held in Western Germany). Sharansky subsequently emigrates to Israel.
30 September – Israeli Mossad agent Cheryl Bentov who befriended Israeli nuclear weapons whistleblowerMordechai Vanunu persuades him to fly to Rome with her on a holiday. Once in Rome, Mossad agents overpower and drug him and carry him to a waiting ship off the coast, which takes him to Israel.
16 October – An Israeli F-4 Phantom, piloted by Yishai Aviram, is inadvertently damaged midair and abandoned, resulting in the capture of flight navigator then-Captain Ron Arad by Amal, the Lebanese Shi'ite militia. To this day, the whereabouts of Arad has not been disclosed by his captors.