Upon his return to Israel, with the assistance of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Bogale began consolidating support for Beta Israelis to return to their homeland. During the next few years, many Jews fled Ethiopia, stopping at refugee camps in Sudan, before arriving in Israel, although thousands died along the way. Finally, in 1984, with the cooperation of the Israel Defense Forces, the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States embassy in Khartoum, mercenaries, and Sudanese state security forces., a covert initiative named Operation Moses airlifted some 8,000 Beta Israelis to Israel. Bogale's son, Zecarias, played a key role in both Operations Moses and Solomon. The latter was an airlift by the Israeli military in 1991 that brought more than 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa to Jerusalem.