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Operation
'Thunderbolt'

On July 4th 1976, Israelis celebrated a modern-day miracle. Huge crowds gathered at Ben Gurion airport to welcome home the heroes of an almost unbelievable drama, one of the most spectacular military rescue operations in history. The passengers on Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris had been taken hostage by four armed terrorists who boarded the aircraft during a stop-over at Athens. The hijacked plane eventually landed at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda where the passengers became prisoners of one of Africa's most sadistic dictators, President Idi Amin. Publicly Amin claimed he was helping the hostages, but in truth was that he had given safe haven to the hijackers and supported their activities. During the seven days that the Airbus sat on the tarmac at Entebbe, the 83 passengers with Israeli passports, or with just 'Jewish sounding' names, were separated from the others. This act was horribly similar to the Nazi 'slekzia', the selection process by which Jews were sent to their deaths in the concentration camps in W.W.II. The Government of Israel recognised that the time for verbal negotiations was over.

And so it happened that early on the morning of July 4th 1976, the Israeli military operation Thunderbolt made its surprise attack on Entebbe. Flying over enemy Arab states and avoiding Russian built radar, four Hercules transport planes and two Boeing 707s flew 2,500 miles to airlift 103 hostages (including the Air France crew) to safety. In under ninety minutes, the Israeli raiding party stormed the airport, killed the terrorists, gathered up the hostages and was airborne once again, safely on their way home. The reception accorded the commandos when the plane carrying the hostages touched down near Tel Aviv was very moving. People embraced and cried, others shouted for joy safe in the knowledge that Jews could depend on other Jews to rescue them.

World reaction was incredible. The Daily Mail wrote (5/7/76) "What an incredible people are the Israelis. Even they looked beaten this time. Surrender to some at least of the terrorists demands seemed the only way out. World-weary realists eased themselves back in their armchairs and waited for the Government of Israel to choke down its pride and do a deal. Then suddenly out of the dark African sky came rescue for a hundred hostages and revenge on the terrorists. It was magnificent. There is no other word for it." The Times editorial (5/7/76) discussed whether the Israelis where justified in performing secret military activities in a foreign country. It came to this conclusion: "The fight against international terrorism is one in which every situation is unique. There are few general laws and few precedents with lasting value. Israel's action should not necessarily be regarded as a precedent. It was a brilliant act of courage and imagination in a desperate situation. It deserved to succeed and it did. By risking their own lives the Israeli soldiers saved not only the hostages but all those people who would certainly have been future victims if President Amin's guests had had their way."

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