ENTEBBE ASSAULT
On June 1976, staffs at Athens Main Airport are on strike and a faction of a radical Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorists (mainly from Germany) agitating for the Palestinian Cause takes advantage of the security laxity and hijacks an Air France Airbus with 246 Passengers of all nationalities including more than a hundred Israelis travelling from France to Israel. The terror unit was formed with the notion of getting back the Palestinian land had been annexed by Israeli after the 1967 Arab Israeli War. The PFLP had resorted to airing their ’grievances’ by hijacking Passenger jets and had seized about Fifty of jets in roughly a decade. The 6 terrorists among them their woman leader had used fake documents to board the Passenger jet. They took control of the jet including by brandishing machine guns before forcing the pilot to cut off the radar signals and divert the plane to Libya, Col Muammar Gadaffi’s country, a country Israeli army had no jurisdiction over and one that had strongly been rebuking Israel and had been calling out for the Palestinian Cause. The jet was refueled before embarking on a country in East Africa, far from the reach of the Israeli Commandoes due to the distance between Uganda and Israel (moreen).
Israel and Uganda’s then dictator, Idi Amin Dada had enjoyed some close ties with him until Amin severed the relations with the Israelis after their PM in 1972, Golda Meir refused to give him some fighter jets to attack Kenya and thus had changed allegiance to Palestine’s (many Problems with dictators). He, however, hoped to seize this opportunity and act as the ’mediator’ thereby propelling him to the position of a World leader and so he visited the hostages with a battalion of journalists. The PFLP demanded the immediate release of all jailed terrorists otherwise the hostages would be killed by shooting. Israel came under severe pressure from relatives but didn’t bulge as one of the country’s policies is non-negotiation with terrorists. Entebbe Airport has two terminals just like ours and an Israeli Construction Company had built the old Terminal and thus the firm held the blueprints. Israeli intelligence obtained the blueprints and studied the building inside out. Israel had trained the Ugandan army and thus knew their weaknesses and strengths.
Israel flew 4 C13 Hercules Planes full of commandoes over the length of the Red Sea to avoid being detected by either Egyptian Radars whom they had fought in the 6 day Arab Israel war of 1967 when they had annexed the Palestinian territory or Saudi Arabia’s radars. The commander of the Israeli entourage was current Israeli’s PM Brother, Yonni Netanyahu. The 4 Hercules were to land on Entebbe’s new terminal undetected and they would use a decoy of Iddi Amin’s Presidential motorcade to get to the Old terminal where the hostages had been held, a cool 2.4km away. The Israelis hoped to subdue the Ugandans’ and the
terrorists with an Element of Surprise which failed spectacularly at the first hurdle at the gate when they shot a Ugandan soldier with an AK47 with no silencers thereby leading to Ugandan soldiers shooting at the motorcade. The rescue took only 59 minutes to free the over hundred Israelis held at the facility after the 6 terrorists had selectively released the on Israeli passengers. All t6 terrorists were killed by the commandoes including twenty Ugandan soldiers. In contrast, only 5 Israelis were killed including their Inspirational commander, Yonni Netanyahu and a 19 year old French Israeli.