Entebbe raid
The Entebbe raid, also known as the Operation Entebbe and officially codenamed Operation Thunderbolt, was a 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda. It was launched in response to the hijacking of an international civilian passenger flight operated by Air France between the cities of Tel Aviv and Paris. During a stopover in Athens, the aircraft was hijacked by two Palestinian PFLP–EO and two German RZ members, who diverted the flight to Libya and then to Uganda, where they landed at Entebbe International Airport to be joined by other terrorists. Once in Uganda, the group enjoyed support from Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.
A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner with 248 passengers had been hijacked by two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations under orders of Wadie Haddad, and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells. The hijackers took hostages with the stated objective of compelling the release of 40 Palestinian and affiliated militants imprisoned in Israel as well as the release of 13 prisoners in four other countries. Over 100 Ugandan soldiers were deployed to support the hijackers after the flight landed, and Amin, who had been informed of the hijacking from the beginning, had personally welcomed the terrorists at Entebbe. After moving all of the hostages to a defunct airport, the hijackers separated all Israelis and several non-Israeli Jews from the larger group of passengers, subsequently moving them into a separate room. Over the next two days, 148 non-Israeli hostages were released and flown out to Paris. The 94 remaining passengers, most of whom were Israelis, and the 12-member Air France crew continued to be held as hostages.
Representatives within the Israeli government initially debated over whether to concede or respond by force, as the hijackers had threatened to kill the 106 captives if the specified prisoners were not released. Acting on intelligence provided by Mossad, the decision was made to have the Israeli military undertake a rescue operation. The Israeli plans included preparation for an armed confrontation with Amin's Uganda Army.
Initiating the operation at nightfall on 3 July 1976, Israeli transport planes flew 100 commandos over to Uganda for the rescue effort. Over the course of 90 minutes, 102 of the hostages were rescued successfully, with three having been killed. One of the dead hostages, Dora Bloch, was murdered by Ugandan authorities at a hospital in Kampala shortly after the Israeli rescue operation; she had fallen ill during the hijacking and was removed from the plane for treatment prior to the commandos' arrival. The Israeli military suffered five wounded and one killed; Yonatan Netanyahu was Israel's sole fatality of Operation Entebbe, and had led Sayeret Matkal during the rescue effort – he was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who would later become Israel's prime minister. The Israeli commandos killed all of the hijackers and 45 Ugandan soldiers, and 11 of Uganda's MiG-17s and MiG-21s were destroyed. Over the course of the operation in Uganda, Israel received support from neighbouring Kenya. Idi Amin, the then President of Uganda, subsequently issued orders for the Ugandan army to kill all Kenyans living in Uganda, leading to the deaths of 245 Kenyan-Ugandans and the exodus of around 3000 Kenyans from Uganda.
Hijacking
On 27 June 1976, Air France Flight 139, an Airbus A300B4-203 registered as with serial number 019, departed from Tel Aviv, Israel, carrying 246 mainly Jewish and Israeli passengers and a crew of 12. The plane flew to Athens, Greece, where it picked up an additional 58 passengers, including four hijackers. It departed for Paris at 12:30 pm. Just after takeoff, the flight was hijacked by two Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations, Jayel al-Arja and Fayez Abdul-Rahim al Jaber, and two Germans, Wilfried Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann, from the German Revolutionary Cells. The hijackers diverted the flight to Benghazi, Libya. There it was held on the ground for seven hours for refuelling. During that time the hijackers released British-born Israeli citizen Patricia Martell, who pretended to have a miscarriage. The plane left Benghazi and at 3:15 pm on the 28 June, more than 24 hours after the flight's original departure, it arrived at Entebbe International Airport in Uganda.Situation at Uganda's Entebbe International Airport
At Entebbe, the four hijackers were joined by at least four others, supported by the forces of Uganda's president, Idi Amin. The hijackers transferred the passengers to the transit hall of the disused former airport terminal where they kept them under guard for the following days. Amin came to visit the hostages almost on a daily basis, updating them on developments and promising to use his efforts to have them freed through negotiations.On 28 June, a PFLP-EO hijacker issued a declaration and formulated their demands. In addition to a ransom of US$5 million for the release of the airplane, they demanded the release of 53 Palestinian and pro-Palestinian militants, 40 of whom were prisoners in Israel. They threatened that if these demands were not met, they would begin to kill hostages on 1 July 1976.
Separation of hostages
On 29 June, after Ugandan soldiers had opened an entrance to a room next to the crowded waiting hall by destroying a separating wall, the hijackers separated the Israelis from the other hostages and told them to move to the adjoining room. As they did so, a Holocaust survivor showed hijacker Wilfried Böse a camp registration number tattooed on his arm. Böse protested "I'm no Nazi! ... I am an idealist." In addition, five non-Israeli hostages – two ultra-orthodox Jewish couples from the US and Belgium and a French resident of Israel – were forced to join the Israeli group. According to Monique Epstein Khalepski, the French hostage among the five, the captors had singled them out for questioning and suspected them of hiding their Israeli identities. On the other hand, according to French hostage Michel Cojot-Goldberg, the captors failed to identify at least one Israeli among the passengers who was a military officer with dual citizenship then using his non-Israeli passport and he was later freed as part of the second release of non-Israeli hostages. US citizen Janet Almog, Frenchwoman Jocelyne Monier, and French-Israeli dual citizen Jean-Jacques Mimouni, whose name had not been called up during the reading of the original passport-based list, reportedly joined the Israeli hostage group by their own choice.Release of most non-Israeli hostages
On 30 June, the hijackers released 48 hostages. The released were picked from among the non-Israeli group – mainly elderly and sick passengers and mothers with children. Forty-seven of them were flown by a chartered Air France Boeing 747 out of Entebbe to Paris, and one passenger was treated in hospital for a day. On 1 July, after the Israeli government had conveyed its agreement to negotiations, the hostage-takers extended their deadline to noon on 4 July and released another group of 100 non-Israeli captives who again were flown to Paris a few hours later. Among the 106 hostages staying behind with their captors at Entebbe airport were the 12 members of the Air France crew who refused to leave, about ten young French passengers, and the Israeli group of some 84 people.Israeli response
Diplomatic efforts
In the week before the raid, Israel tried using 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, trying to gain the release of the hostages, without success. The Israeli government also approached the United States government to deliver a message to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, asking him to request that Amin release the hostages. Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and defence minister Shimon Peres spent one week disagreeing on whether to give in to the hijackers' demands or not, to prevent more terrorism.At the 1 July deadline the Israeli cabinet offered to negotiate with the hijackers to extend the deadline to 4 July. Amin also asked them to extend the deadline until that date. This meant he could take a diplomatic trip to Port Louis, Mauritius, to officially hand over chairmanship of the Organisation of African Unity to Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. This extension of the hostage deadline proved crucial to providing Israeli forces enough time to get to Entebbe.
On 3 July at 18:30, the Israeli cabinet approved a rescue mission, presented by Major General Yekutiel Adam and Brigadier General Dan Shomron. Shomron was appointed as the operation commander.
Egyptian–PLO involvement and failure of diplomacy
As the crisis unfolded, attempts were made to negotiate the release of the hostages. According to declassified diplomatic documents, the Egyptian government under Sadat tried to negotiate with both the PLO and the Ugandan government. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat sent his political aide Hani al-Hassan to Uganda as a special envoy to negotiate with the hostage takers and with Amin. However, the PFLP-EO hijackers refused to see him.Israel's military preparations
When Israeli authorities failed to negotiate a political solution, they decided that their only option was an attack to rescue the hostages. Lt. Col., lead pilot of the operation, later said that the Israelis had initially conceived of a rescue plan that involved dropping naval commandos into Lake Victoria. The commandos would have ridden rubber boats to the airport on the edge of the lake. They planned to kill the hijackers and after freeing the hostages, they would ask Amin for passage home. The Israelis abandoned this plan because they lacked the necessary time and also because they had received word that Lake Victoria was inhabited by the Nile crocodile.Amnon Biran, the mission's intelligence officer, later stated that the proper layout of the airport was unknown, as was the exact location of the hostages and whether the building had been prepared with explosives.