Immediately after WWII the Czechicon Government was in short supply of hard currency. They had piles of Germanicon equipment all over their country(German, Czech and FN rifles). A deal was made to ship Kar98's to Israel via Ethiopia (as a cover). The US CIA helped with the deal. Many rifles were shipped as well as MG34's and some MG42's. In the late 1950's Israel re-barreled most (not all) rifles into 7.62mm. Local barrels were used and the result was a very good rifle. There are many articles around and even good books on this topic. Cheers.