it instead succeeded and became an embarrassment for the Soviet Union, which ended the blockade. The blockade and the success of the airlift would be a major factor in the beginning of the Cold War and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western European Union, and the Federal Republic of Germany. The Israeli Air Force and El Al conducted a number of airlifts during the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In 1949 Israel evacuated 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel via Operation On Wings of Eagles. In 1951 it carried out Operation Ezra and Nehemiah evacuating over 120,000 Jews from Iraq to Israel via British Cyprus. The Israel Defense Forces later evacuated over 8,000 Beta Israel refugees from Ethiopia living in refugee camps in Sudan through Operation Moses, Operation Joshua, and Operation Solomon during the Ethiopian famine and civil war. During the First Indochina War, the French expeditionary forces devised the hérisson ('hedgehog') concept, establishing a fortified airhead by airlifting soldiers to positions adjacent to key Viet Minh supply lines to Laos. This would cut off Viet Minh soldiers fighting in Laos and force them to withdraw. "It was an attempt to interdict the enemy's rear area, to stop the flow of supplies and reinforcements, to establish a redoubt in the enemy's rear and disrupt his lines". It was executed successfully at the Battle of Nà Sản, so the French hoped to repeat it on a larger scale at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. However, based on the lessons learned from Nà Sản, the Viet Minh improved their preparations at Điện Biên Phủ including concealed artillery and massed anti-aircraft batteries, making it dangerous for the French aircraft to use the runways, afterwards a bombardment forced the French to abandon use of the airstrip altogether and rely upon parachute drops. The besieged French forces eventually surrendered. The largest civilian airlift ever, the Biafran airlift, was carried out by Protestant and Catholic churches working together under the banner "Joint Church Aid" (JCA) to carry food to Biafra, during the Biafran secession war from Nigeria in 1967–70. This joint effort (which those involved used to call "Jesus Christ Airlines" as an inside joke from the initials JCA) is estimated to have saved more than a million lives in Biafra. Most airplanes departed from Portuguese São Tomé and Príncipe to the bush