Operation Entebbe

On 27 June 1976 two PFLP terrorists and two German leftist militants hijacked Air France Flight 139 from Tel Aviv after a stop in Athens and took it, via Libya, to Entebbe in Uganda, where dictator Idi Amin openly supported them. They released most non-Israeli passengers but kept the Israeli and Jewish hostages; the French crew, led by captain Michel Bacos, refused to leave them. On the night of 3–4 July about 100 Israeli commandos flew some 4,000 km in four C-130 Hercules aircraft, landed in the dark with a black Mercedes disguised as Amin's car, stormed the old terminal and were on the ground for about 90 minutes.

Of 106 hostages, 102 were rescued; three were killed in the crossfire, and Dora Bloch, who had been taken to a Kampala hospital, was murdered afterwards on Amin's orders. The only soldier killed was the assault commander, Lt. Col. Yonatan (Yoni) Netanyahu, and the mission, planned as Operation Thunderbolt, was renamed Operation Yonatan in his memory. Carried out on the American Bicentennial, it became a model for hostage rescue worldwide.