The Rescue action in Entebbe

Operation Entebbe was a successful rescue mission in which Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos freed over 100 hostages at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda on July 4, 1976. One sole commando was killed – Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother Jonathan.

The last known image of Jonathan Netanyahu. Photo: Unknown.

The background to this raid was that an Air France aircraft with 248 passengers had been hijacked by members of the two Moscow-led terror groups Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and German Revolutionary Cells. The terrorists and the hijacked plane were received by the Ugandan government, and dictator Idi Amin personally welcomed them. The hostages were all moved to a disused terminal where the hijackers separated all the Israelis and non-Israeli Jews from the larger group. 94 people and 12 members of the Air France remained as hostages while the others were released. Captain Michel Bacos and the crew of the hijacked Air France Airbus refused to abandon the 94 Israeli and Jewish passengers who’d been taken hostage.
The rescue mission took place at night as Israeli transport planes flew 100 commandos over 2,500 miles to Uganda after a week of planning. 102 of the 104 hostages were rescued, five Israeli commandos were wounded, and the group’s leader, Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu, was killed. Jonathan Netanyahu was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel.
All the hijackers and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed and 11 planes, a third of Uganda’s air force, were destroyed. Kenya’s support for the operation led to Idi Amin murdering 245 Kenyans in Uganda while 3,000 Kenyans fled to Kenya.

Dictator Idi Amin visited the hostages almost every day and updated them with information on developments. Inside the Entebbe terminal, one hostage, Auschwitz survivor Yitzhak David, had a conversation with German terrorist Wilfried Bose. This was witnessed by another hostage, Ilan Hartuv, who later told Haaretz newspaper on July 8, 2011:
“David showed him [Wilfried Bose] the number tattooed on his arm and told him in German: ‘I was wrong to tell my children that there is another Germany now. When I see what you and your friends are doing to women, children and the elderly, I see that nothing has changed in Germany.´
Bose, who had been calm and determined until then, turned pale and trembled. ‘You are wrong. I committed acts of terror in West Germany because the ruling establishment took Nazis and reactionaries into their service… I and my friends are here to help the Palestinians, because they are the weaker party. They are the ones who are suffering.’
Yitzhak David then replied: ‘Well, then, when the Palestinians have fulfilled their promise to throw us into the sea, we will come to you for help to hijack Arab planes.’
When the shooting began, Bose was the only terrorist to enter our hall with a Kalashnikov. He aimed it at us, but immediately came to his senses and ordered us to retreat to the toilets and take cover there. He didn’t shoot at us, only at the soldiers. After he was killed in the crossfire, I saw that his Kalashnikov was aimed at them.”

The hijackers demanded a ransom of $5 million for the release of the hostages and the release of 53 imprisoned Palestinian and pro-Palestinian terrorists. They threatened to begin killing off the hostages on July 1, but after the Israeli government accepted negotiations, the hijackers extended their deadline to July 4. This extension became crucial in giving the IDF enough time to get to Entebbe.
On July 3 at 6:30 p.m., the Israeli government decided on a rescue mission and appointed General Dan Shomron as commander of the operation. Kenya gave permission to cross its airspace and refuel the Hercules plane at what is today Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
The task force flew over the Red Sea, mostly at a maximum of 30 meters to avoid radar, passing south of Djibouti and northeast of Nairobi in Kenya. The Israeli forces landed at Entebbe airport with open cargo doors and drove out a black Mercedes car that looked like President Idi Amin’s car. Three other Hercules planes had then landed armored personnel carriers which destroyed Ugandan MiG fighters to prevent them from pursuing the Israelis.
At least five Israeli commandos were wounded and Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu was killed. Netanyahu’s body was lifted onto one of the planes before they left the airport. UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim subsequently considered the raid to be “a serious violation of the sovereignty of a UN member state”.

In 1967, Major Rami Sherman was involved in the release of the hostages in Operation Entebbe forty-eight years ago. He says:
– Today’s hostage situation in Gaza is much more complex and is also dynamic and constantly changing. My only advice to those in charge today is not to discuss different strategies for how to free the hostages in television panels but behind closed doors, says Rami Sherman, who was the second man in the chain of command after Jonathan Netanyahu in the release operation.
We meet him at the Maxim restaurant just outside Haifa, which in October 2003 was blown up by a suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad. Twenty-one restaurant patrons were killed and 60 injured. 
In the American-Jewish magazine Moment in 1988, Benjamin Netanyahu described his relationship with his older brother Jonathan saying, “He had a tremendous influence on us. In many ways he educated us. He was an example to us… After his death, he left a legacy that endures. His legacy is like a compass rather than a weight… We were very, very close, a very tight family, very close brothers. We felt he was unique even during his lifetime.”