It’s a day I will never forget. It was a Sunday morning. The date was July 4, 1976. The big focus was expected to be the American bicentennial.
I was living in Rome, Italy, at the time, working with Jews from the Soviet Union who had been permitted to emigrate and were en route to new lives in the West. It was a rare day off. My future wife and I were in my flat when the phone rang. It was one of her sisters. “Turn on the radio or television right now,” she breathlessly said. “A miracle has happened.”
Access to news then was not nearly as instantaneous as it is today, without 24-hour cable news channels or the internet. Nonetheless, within a few minutes, we were hearing the first Italian-language headlines that Israel had succeeded in pulling off perhaps the most ambitious and audacious hostage rescue operation in history. Giulietta and I could hardly believe our ears. Was it really possible? We jumped for joy.
The story began a week earlier. On June 27, Air France Flight 139, from Tel Aviv to Paris, carrying over 250 passengers, was hijacked after a stopover in Athens and diverted to Entebbe, Uganda.
The four terrorists, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Red Army Faction, a radical West German group, were joined there by several additional terrorists and were supported by Ugandan President Idi Amin’s iron-fisted government. Amin had once trained in Israel as a parachutist. But later, after seizing power in 1971 and becoming Uganda’s dictator, he joined forces with Israel’s most implacable enemies, invoking his Islamic faith.
The terrorists sorted through the passengers, allowing those who were not Israeli or Jewish to be freed while holding the remaining passengers hostage and demanding the release of 53 imprisoned comrades, held in West Germany, Israel, Kenya, and elsewhere in exchange.
As the days wore on, it seemed increasingly likely that Israel would have no choice but to yield to the extortionist demands, notwithstanding Israel’s longstanding policy against negotiating with terrorists in such hostage situations.
After all, over 100 people were being held in Entebbe, a heavily guarded airport and military field 4,000 kilometers from the Jewish state. What other option was there apart from watching the civilians be murdered one by one?
But, unbeknownst to the world, Israel was hard at work exploring the possibility of a rescue operation. Not France, whose plane was hijacked, but Israel. The operational and logistical obstacles were almost beyond imagination, the risks and uncertainties profound.
Israel pulled it off – 4,000 kilometres away. In the dead of night. With no friendly country along the way in case of mishap or mechanical failure. Despite seven heavily armed terrorists, Ugandan troops, and Soviet-built Ugandan Air Force planes on the ground. And even seeking to deceive the enemy forces with an exact replica of Idi Amin’s car, suggesting it was the ruler arriving at the airport, not Israeli commandos.
The unmistakable Israeli message: We will not be cowed by terrorists, by blackmail, by coercion. We will go to any lengths to protect the lives of fellow Israelis, of fellow Jews. The days of Jewish powerlessness and helplessness are long gone. We have sovereignty; we have the means to defend ourselves; and we have the will to act, even against all the odds. Never again underestimate us.
And there was more to the story, of course.
It began with individuals who resisted the negotiation option with terrorists, most notably Shimon Peres, Israel’s minister of defence at the time. He pressed forward to seek a military solution, even as some other leaders were more sceptical or hesitant. He feared that otherwise the hostages would be killed, a dangerous precedent would be set, and Israel would pay a heavy price long into the future.
Yonatan Netanyahu, the current prime minister’s older brother, was chosen to lead the rescue mission. By all accounts, he was an extraordinary individual, with the steel of an elite soldier and the soul of a poet. He was the only Israeli soldier killed in the operation. At his funeral, Shimon Peres said:
“A bullet had torn the young heart of one of Israel’s finest sons, one of its most courageous warriors, one of its most promising commanders — the magnificent Yonatan Netanyahu.”
And there was the Air France pilot, Michel Bacos, a quiet hero in his own right. Given the choice by the captors to leave with the non-Israeli, non-Jewish passengers, he chose to stay with the remaining hostages. His duty, he said, was to all his passengers, not to some. And the entire Air France crew followed his example. They were all among those rescued on July 4 and brought by Hercules transport planes to safety in Israel, after which they returned to France.
Four hostages were killed in this saga. Three – Pasco Cohen, Ida Borochovitch, and Jean-Jacques Maimoni – died during the rescue operation. A fourth hostage, Dora Bloch, had earlier been taken to an Ugandan hospital because of a medical emergency and was later murdered on Idi Amin’s orders.
And last but not least, one African country came to Israel’s assistance. Kenya, which shares a border with Uganda and was led by President Jomo Kenyatta, offered critical help – from intelligence gathering, to landing rights and refuelling for the Israeli planes headed home, to a hospital staging area for those injured in the rescue mission. Kenya paid a heavy price for its assistance. On learning of Kenya’s role, Idi Amin unleashed his wrath on Kenyans living in Uganda, reportedly killing many.
Fifty years later, the Entebbe mission is still studied as one of the most daring rescue operations ever – and a powerful reminder of Israel’s remarkable ability to think outside the box and act accordingly when lives are at stake.
Oh, and one more thing. Sometimes history can move in the right direction. Thankfully, Idi Amin is long gone. By contrast, Uganda’s current president, Yoweri Museveni, has reportedly ordered the construction of a statue honouring Yonatan Netanyahu at the exact spot where he was killed leading the Entebbe rescue mission 50 years ago.
David Harris is the executive vice-chair of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), and author of “Antisemitism: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford University Press, 2025)
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