The July 4th the Israelis rescued hostages at Entebbe

Front Page Magazine:

On July 4th, 1976, as America celebrated its Bicentennial, four Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules planes carrying over 100 Jewish passengers, twelve Air France flight personnel, and their Israeli rescuers landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport. The safe landing of civilians and commandos marked the end of a week-long, nightmarish drama that gripped all of Israel.

The saga began on June 27, when a Paris-bound Air France commercial airliner took off from Tel-Aviv. The plane was scheduled for a stopover in Athens. Lax security at Athens International Airport enabled four terrorists with forged passports – two from the notorious West German Baader-Meinhof Gang and two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – to board the flight with their guns, grenades and explosives.

Their hijacking adventure set into motion a sequence of events that would reverberate around the world. It would also ultimately serve to further enhance the prestige and reputation of Israel’s vaunted, specialized commando units and intelligences services.

After a brief refueling stopover in Benghazi, Libya, the terrorists flew their commandeered Airbus A-300 to Entebbe airport in Uganda where they were given a hero’s welcome by their mercurial Ugandan host, the cannibalistically-inclined dictator, Idi Amin. In addition to providing them with safe haven, the despotic Amin placed elements of the Ugandan army at the hijackers’ disposal. In addition to the Ugandans, the terrorists’ ranks now swelled to seven, having been joined by three PFLP operatives during the Benghazi stopover.

Upon landing at Entebbe, the hostages were ferried to the airport’s old terminal building. As luck would have it, an Israeli construction firm had built the terminal for the Ugandans and promptly handed over the construction blueprints to Israeli intelligence for analysis. Still, the outlook was bleak for the hostages. Uganda was more than 3,000 miles from Jerusalem. Moreover, any attempt at air rescue would necessitate flying through radar coverage of three enemy countries – Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia. The well-armed terrorists seemed insulated from attack.

Soon after their arrival, the terrorists segregated those holding Israeli passports and those with Jewish-sounding surnames from the rest of the passengers. The Jews were placed in another room within the terminal. The depressing irony of armed Germans separating Jews – including Holocaust survivors – from non-Jews just thirty years post-Holocaust could not be overstated.

On June 29, the terrorists began releasing the non-Jewish passengers adding additional pressure on the Israeli government to act. The terrorists were transforming an international problem into an Israeli one in an effort to isolate the Jewish state. The Air France flight crew, headed by its captain, Michel Bacos, courageously opted to stay with the Israelis. Bacos died this year at the age of 95 and was recognized by both France and Israel for his heroism.

The release of the non-Jewish passengers represented the first critical mistake of the terrorists. They were immediately debriefed by Israeli intelligence on any information that could potentially assist in a rescue effort. One passenger in particular, Ninette Morenu, possessed a near photographic memory and provided detailed information that would prove invaluable to the rescue operation. Morenu, who was Jewish, was released by mistake due to her non-Jewish sounding surname. Her grandson, Emmanuel Morenu, would later become an officer in the Israel Defense Force’s Sayeret Matkal, the very unit charged with rescuing the Entebbe’s hostages.

Contemporaneous with the debriefing, the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, dispatched an operative to fly a light plane over Entebbe to engage in aerial reconnaissance. The pilot informed the control tower that his plane was experiencing engine trouble and the Ugandans bought the ruse. The Mossad pilot’s photographs provided vital information on the strength, disposition and placement of the Ugandan forces at the airport.

Meanwhile, the hijackers demanded the release of dozens of terrorists held by Israel, Kenya, France, Germany and Switzerland and warned Israel that they would begin executing the hostages by midday of July 1, unless their demands were met. The Israeli government pretended to negotiate while formulating a rescue plan, winning an extension from the terrorists until 2:00 p.m., July 4.
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To circumvent enemy radar, the C-130s flew the length of the Red Sea for some 900 miles at low level before penetrating the African continent toward Uganda. To Shani’s surprise and relief, the Ugandans had not turned off the runway lights. He landed his C-130 undetected. The other C-130s carrying additional forces would land approximately seven minutes later.

The Sayeret Matkal now had to cover approximately 2.4 kilometers of ground to reach the old terminal building where the hostages were held. A column of Land Rovers led by a black Mercedes, similar to the type used by Amin, stealthily made its way to the old terminal. A Ugandan sentry greeted the Mercedes by raising his Kalashnikov assault rifle. Betzer, who was familiar with Ugandan military greeting protocols, did not view the Ugandan’s actions as threatening, and urged Yoni to ignore the Ugandan and keep driving to the terminal. Netanyahu disagreed. He and another commando pumped several silenced rounds into the Ugandan. Unfortunately, it didn’t do the trick forcing another commando to fire his unsilenced AK-47 at the Ugandan to confirm the kill.

The burst of automatic fire broke the silence of the still night and alerted the Ugandans and terrorists to the presence of a potential problem. Undaunted by the loss of surprise, the commandos pressed forward and stormed the terminal, ordering the hostages to remain on the floor. A fierce firefight ensued with the Israelis firing short, controlled bursts, systematically eliminating all threats to themselves and the hostages.

Meanwhile, additional forces from the remaining C-130s arrived, and with sheer tenacity and firepower, helped the commandos overwhelm remaining opposition. Having safely secured the hostages and neutralized the enemy threat, the para-commandos turned their attention to Ugandan air force MiG -21 and MiG-17 jet fighters parked at the tarmac. Within minutes, the Israelis transformed Amin’s air force into a smoldering junkyard.

When the guns fell silent, all seven terrorists were dispatched along with some 20 to 40 Ugandan soldiers, and Amin’s air force was no longer a threat to the departing C-130s. Three hostages were killed, including Jean-Jacques Mimouni, a 19-year-old idealist, who in his excitement at seeing the commandos, stood up and began to cheer. A Matkal commando, possibly Betzer himself, mistook the young man for a terrorist and shot him dead. An unfortunate act of friendly fire cut short the life of a promising young man. A fourth hostage, the elderly Dora Bloch, who was at a Kampala hospital at the time of the raid recovering a choking episode, was murdered on Amin’s orders. Her remains were recovered some years later and brought back to Israel for burial next to her husband.
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It was one of the most daring commando raids in history and one of the most successful.  Bibi Netanyahu's brother was the only Israeli casualty.  It was a July 4th that is unlikely to ever be forgotten in Israel.