On this day: The hijacking that would lead to Operation Entebbe
Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked on June 27, 1976, 45 years ago.
Entebbe Airport, 1976
(photo credit: GPO)
Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked on June 27, 1976, 45 years ago, kicking off an infamous incident that saw the IDF storm the Entebbe Airport and rescue the hostages.
The flight was hijacked after a short layover in Athens by four terrorists — two from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and two from the Bader-Meinhof gang in Germany.
They forced the captain to land at Benghazi airport in Libya, then shortly after flew to Entebbe Airport in Uganda, where Ugandan soldiers and president Idi Amin supported the hijackers and help trapped the hostages.
This marked the beginning of Operation Entebbe.
The hijackers separated the roughly 100 Jewish and Israeli hostages from the rest of the captives; the non-Jewish passengers were freed. The hijackers demanded that 53 captives imprisoned in Israel and other countries be released.
On July 4, 1976, four transport aircrafts holding more than 200 soldiers took off from Sharm el-Sheikh to Entebbe, 4,000 kilometres away from Israel. The flight took eight hours, flying extremely low to avoid any radar.
It was less than 90 minutes from the moment the fourth aircraft landed until its return to Israel.
Speaking at the Knesset at the time, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin who ordered the raid said: “This operation will certainly be inscribed in the annals of military history, in legend and in national tradition.”
During the raid, Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu, was killed — shot in the back from a watchtower by a Ugandan soldier after leading the rescue.
During the memorial for the anniversary of the Hebrew date, incoming President Isaac Herzog eulogized Yoni as “a national, ‘biblical,’ hero.”
Recently, a Jewish centre in Uganda was dedicated to Yoni Netanyahu, serving as a synagogue and community centre to the Jews living in the community.
Did you know that Captain Reginald Levy
In charge of the Sabrina Flight 571 that was hijacked in 1972 attended Blackpool Grammar School in his youth?