Entebbe raid

Operation Entebbe
Part of Arab-Israeli Conflict
Date July 4 1976 Location Entebbe Airport, Uganda Result Mission successful; most hostages rescued
Belligerents
Israel	Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Revolutionäre Zellen Uganda
Commanders and leaders
Yonatan Netanyahu†	Wadie Haddad Wilfried Böse Idi Amin
Strength
29 Commandos	Unknown
Casualties and losses
Yonatan Netanyahu killed three hostages killed five commandos wounded	6 hijackers killed 45 Ugandan soldiers killed

Operation Entebbe, also known as the Entebbe incident and sometimes the Entebbe Raid, was a rescue mission performed by Sayeret Matkal (the Israeli elite special forces) to free hostages held on Air France Flight 139 at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. It took place on the night of July 3 and early morning of July 4, 1976. It was planned secretly and carried out against the Ugandan government, whose leader Idi Amin supported the hostage takers. One Israeli soldier, 45 Ugandan soldiers, six hijackers, and three hostages were killed in the action; 100 hostages were freed.

The operation was called Operation Thunderbolt (or Operation Thunderball) by the Israeli military operatives who planned and carried it out. It was retroactively renamed Operation Yonatan after the raid commander, Colonel Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, the only Israeli soldier to die in the raid and the elder brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who would later become Israel's Prime Minister.

Hijack

On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139, an Airbus A300 originating from Tel Aviv, carrying 248 passengers and a crew of twelve, took off from Athens, heading for Paris. Soon after the 12:30 p.m. takeoff, the flight was hijacked by two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO) and two Germans from the German "Revolutionary Cells (RZ)" (Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann), who commandeered the flight, diverting it to Benghazi, Libya. There it was held on the ground for seven hours for refueling, during which time a female hostage who pretended she was pregnant was released. The plane left Benghazi, and at 3:15 it arrived at Entebbe Airport (now known as Entebbe International Airport) in Uganda.

At Entebbe, the four hijackers were joined by three additional guerrillas, supported by the pro-Palestinian forces of Uganda's President, Idi Amin. The hijackers were led by Böse (and not, as occasionally reported, by Carlos the Jackal). They demanded the release of 40 Palestinians held in Israel and 13 other detainees imprisoned in Kenya, France, Switzerland, and Germany–and if these demands were not met, they threatened to begin killing hostages on July 1, 1976.

The hijackers held the passengers hostage in the transit hall of Entebbe Airport (now the old terminal), and released a large number of hostages, keeping only Israelis and Jews, whom they threatened to kill if Israel did not comply with their demands.

Upon the announcement by the hijackers that the airline crew and non-Israeli/non-Jewish passengers would be released and put on another Air France plane that had been brought to Entebbe for that purpose, Flight 139's Captain Michel Bacos told the hijackers that all passengers, including the remaining ones, were his responsibility, and that he would not leave them behind. Bacos' entire crew followed suit. A French nun also refused to leave, insisting that one of the remaining hostages take her place, but she was forced into the awaiting Air France plane by Ugandan soldiers. A total of 83 Israeli and/or Jewish hostages remained, as well as 20 others, most of whom included the crew of the Air France plane.

The raid

On the July 1 deadline, the government of Israel offered to negotiate with the hijackers in order to extend the deadline to July 4. On July 3, the Israeli cabinet approved a rescue mission, Operation Entebbe, under the command of Brigadier General Dan Shomron. After days of collecting intelligence and planning by Netanyahu's deputy Moshe "Muki" Betser, four Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft flew secretly to Entebbe Airport, by cover of night, without aid of ground control. They were followed by an air force jet with medical facilities, which landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya.

The assault on Entebbe Airport, where the hostages were held, was made up of a team of 29 IDF troops and members of the elite Sayeret Matkal special forces commando unit.

File:Airkz 20040217 yoni netanyahu.jpg

Israeli Colonel Yoni Netanyahu, ground commander during Operation Entebbe

The Israeli forces landed at Entebbe an hour before midnight, with their cargo bay doors already open. A black Mercedes with accompanying Land Rovers was taken along to give the impression that the Israeli troops driving from the landed aircraft to the terminal building were an escort for Idi Amin or another high-ranking official. The Mercedes car was borrowed from an Israeli civilian and apparently spray-painted black for the raid, on the understanding that it would be returned to the owner in its original color.

The Mercedes and its escort vehicles were quickly driven by the Israeli assault team members to the airport terminal in the same fashion as Amin. However, along the way, two Ugandan sentries, who were aware that Idi Amin had recently purchased a white Mercedes to replace his black one, ordered this procession of vehicles to stop. Both of these sentries were immediately shot dead by the Israeli commandos. Fearing premature alerting of associates to the hijackers, the Israeli assault team were quickly sent into action.

The hostages were in the main hall of the airport building, directly adjacent to the runway. The Israelis sprang from their vehicles and burst into the terminal yelling, "Get down! Get down!" in both Hebrew and English. A 19-year-old French Jew named Jean-Jacques Maimoni (who chose to identify himself as an Israeli Jew to the hijackers even though he had a French passport), stood up, however. He was killed by the Israeli commandos, who mistook him for a hijacker. Another hostage, Pasko Cohen, a 52-year-old manager of an Israeli medical insurance fund, was also fatally wounded by gunfire, either from the hijackers or accidentally by the Israeli commandos. A third hostage, 56-year-old Ida Borochovitch, a Russian Jew who had immigrated to Israel, was also killed in the crossfire between the hijackers and the Israeli commandos. At one point, an Israeli commando called out in Hebrew, "Where are the rest of them?" He was apparently referring to the hijackers. The hostages pointed to a connecting door of the airport's main hall, into which the Israeli commandos threw several hand grenades. They then entered the room and shot dead the three remaining hijackers, thus completing their assault.

Meanwhile, the other three C-130 Hercules had landed and unloaded armoured personnel carriers, which were to be used for defense during the anticipated hour of refueling, for the destruction of grounded Ugandan jet fighters so as to prevent them from pursuing the Israelis after their departure of Entebbe Airport, and for intelligence-gathering.

After the raid, the Israeli assault team returned to their aircraft and began loading the hostages on board. Ugandan soldiers shot at them in the process. Without suffering any fatalities of their own, the Israeli commandos returned fire, finished the loading, and then departed Entebbe Airport.

The entire assault lasted less than 30 minutes and all six of the hijackers were killed. Yonatan Netanyahu was the only Israeli commando who died during the operation. He was killed near the airport entrance, apparently by a Ugandan sniper who fired at the Israeli commandos from the nearby control tower. At least five other Israeli commandos were wounded. Out of the 103 hostages, three were killed and approximately 10 were wounded. A total of 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed during the raid, and about 11 Ugandan Army Air Force MiG-17 grounded fighter planes at Entebbe Airport were destroyed. The rescued hostages were flown out to Israel via Nairobi shortly after the fighting.

Dora Bloch, a 75-year-old hostage who was recovering from a much-earlier choking episode, died at Mulago hospital in Kampala after the Israelis struck. In April 1987, Henry Kyemba, who was Uganda's Attorney General and Minister of Justice at the time, told the Uganda Human Rights Commission that Dora Bloch had been dragged from her hospital bed and murdered by two army officers on Idi Amin's orders. Bloch's remains were recovered near a sugar plantation 32 km (20 miles) east of Kampala in 1979 after the Uganda-Tanzania War led to the end of Amin's rule.

Background

One of the reasons that the raid was able to be so well-planned was that the building in which the hostages were being held was built by an Israeli construction firm. Israeli firms were often involved in building projects in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. The firm which built the airport terminal still had the blueprints, and supplied them to the government of Israel. But, more importantly, Mossad (Israel's intelligence service) built an accurate picture of the whereabouts of the hostages, the number of militants and the involvement of Ugandan troops from the released hostages in Paris.

While planning the military operation, the Israeli army built a partial replica of the airport building with the help of some Israeli civilians who had helped build the airport terminal. It has been claimed by researchers that after arriving at the military base to begin work on the replica building (not being aware beforehand what they were to do) the civilian Israeli contractors were invited to dinner with the commander of the base. At the dinner, it was indicated to them that, upon completion of the replica, and in the best interest of national security, they would be held guests of the military by remaining a few days. During the entire operation an extremely high level of security was maintained.

According to a July 5, 2006, Associated Press interview with raid organizer Mookie Betzer, Mossad operatives extensively interviewed the hostages who had been released. As a result, another source of information was a French-Jewish passenger who had been mistakenly released with the non-Jewish hostages. Betzer reports that the man had military training and "a phenomenal memory," allowing him to give information about the number and arms of the hostage-takers, among other useful details.

In the week prior to the raid, Israel had tried a number of political avenues to obtain the release of the hostages. Many sources indicate that the Israeli cabinet was prepared to release Palestinian prisoners if a military solution seemed unlikely to succeed. A retired IDF officer, Baruch "Burka" Bar-Lev, had known Idi Amin for many years, and was considered to have a strong personal relationship with him. At the request of the cabinet he spoke with Amin on the phone many times, attempting to obtain the release of the hostages without success.

Aftermath

The government of Uganda later convened a session of the United Nations Security Council to seek official condemnation of the Israeli raid, as a violation of Ugandan sovereignty. The Security Council ultimately declined to pass any resolution on the matter. In his address to the Council, the Israeli ambassador Chaim Herzog said:

We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.

For refusing to depart when given leave to do so by the hijackers, Captain Bacos was reprimanded by his superiors at Air France and suspended from duty for a period.

The popularity of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin soared in Israel for authorizing the successful rescue.

Dramatizations

The incident was the subject of several films, two of which were U.S. productions with American/British casts; a third was produced in Israel with mostly Israeli actors in the key roles. The hijacking of Air France Flight AF139 and the subsequent rescue mission is also featured in the documentary Operation Thunderbolt: Entebbe.

• Victory At Entebbe (1976)

  with Anthony Hopkins, Burt Lancaster, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Dreyfuss

  Director: Marvin J. Chomsky

• Raid On Entebbe (1977)

  with Peter Finch, Horst Buchholz, Charles Bronson, Yaphet Kotto, and James Woods

  Director: Irvin Kershner

  Producer: Edgar J. Scherick

• Mivtsa Yonatan (English title: Operation Thunderbolt) (1977)

  Israeli Yehoram Gaon played Col. Netanyahu

  Austrian Sybil Danning and German Klaus Kinski played the hijackers.

  Director: Menahem Golan

  Movie theme song: 'Eretz Hatzvi' ("Land of Deer") performed by Yehoram Gaon

• Operation Thunderbolt: Entebbe (2000)

The Delta Force (1986) is a fictional story strongly patterned after Operation Entebbe.

The incident was also featured in Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1980) and The Last King of Scotland (2006).

References

• Hastings, Max. Yoni, Hero of Entebbe Bantam Doubleday Dell Publ., 1979. ISBN 0-385-27127-1
• Netanyahu, Iddo. Yoni's Last Battle: The Rescue at Entebbe, 1976, Gefen Books. ISBN 965-229-283-4
• Netanyahu, Iddo. Entebbe: A Defining Moment in the War on Terrorism: The Jonathan Netanyahu Story, New Leaf Press, 2003. ISBN 0-89221-553-4
• Netanyahu, Jonathan / Netanyahu, Benjamin / Netanyahu, Iddo. Self-Portrait of a Hero: From the Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu, 1963-1976, Warner Books, 1998. ISBN 0-446-67461-3
• Netanyahu, Jonathan. The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu, Gefen Books, 2001. ISBN 965-229-267-2
• Stevenson, William . Ninety Minutes at Entebbe, Bantam Books, 1976. ISBN 0-553-10482-9
• Richler, Mordecai. Solomon Gursky Was Here, Penguin Books, 1989. Pg 539-541. ISBN 0-14-011608-7

See also

• List of hostage crises
• Operation Opera
• Operation Wooden Leg, the Israeli Air Force raid on Tunisia.
• Wadie Haddad
• Aspen Movie Map — a project whose funding came about because of Operation Entebbe

External links

• Entebbe Diary - the official, detailed account by the Israeli Defence Forces.
• isayeret.com - The Israeli Special Forces Database
• BBC Article and Videos - 4 July 1976: Israelis rescue Entebbe hostages (BBC)
• BBC: 30th anniversary of the raid on Entebbe