“Before the operation, I did not believe there would be a permit, but if there was a permit, then either it would be the IDF’s biggest failure, or it would be the IDF’s greatest success,” a General Staff patrolman said of his feelings during the dramatic preparations for the operation.
Entebbe On the 46th anniversary of Operation Entebbe, starting today (Monday), the IDF Archives in the Ministry of Defense published documentation of fighters from the General Staff patrol, who spoke aloud about the moments of tension, preparations and the moment when they realized that the operation was successful.
The documentation was published from a special video prepared on the tenth anniversary of Operation Entebbe, in which the fighters describe the operation from their point of view and with a blurred face.
Operation Entebbe, one of the most heroic operations in the country’s history, took place on July 4, 1976, with the aim of rescuing 105 Jewish, Israeli passengers and crew members of an Air France plane hijacked by German and Palestinian terrorists during their flight from Israel to France. During the heroic operation, three hostages and the commander of the General Staff patrol, the late Yonatan Netanyahu, were killed, and later the operation was named after him.
Another fighter described Netanyahu’s feelings even before landing at Entebbe airport: “Yoni (Netanyahu)’s farewell was as if someone knew what he was going for. He passed between all the soldiers on the plane, he also reached our car, which was inside the plane and shook hands with all the soldiers. “After a few minutes, the plane touched the ground and the operation began.”
One of the fighters said of the preparations: “I arrived at the base with my vehicle. One of the members of the team stood at the gate and announced – guys we are in the burglary squad and then there are species of butterflies in the stomach that start to burst in all directions.”
Another fighter in the General Staff patrol who took part in the operation stressed: “The feeling was that you had to save them, you had to not just because you were told and that you were a soldier. Because it’s your people, it’s your history. “
Another participant in the operation told of the concerns: “What was on my mind during the preparations and also in the operation, is what happened at the Savoy Hotel, that as soon as the shootings started there, part of the building collapsed on us and a soldier was killed.”
One of the fighters recounted the feelings as soon as we landed at Entebbe airport: “As we got off it was clear to me that this is a different world, this is Africa, this is the equator. I do not know, I was waiting to see monkeys, lions, coconuts. I do not know what all my imaginations were about Africa We landed and nothing. The door opens, the track is bright, quiet, looks like a track in Lod, exactly the same.
We started driving. The Mercedes drives first, followed by Jeep number 1, Jeep number 2. Driving slowly, not fast. We saw “In the distance the control tower, we saw the terminal, the terminal was lit. I was sitting inside the Mercedes, it stopped, we got out, we jumped out of the car, we started running.”
He added: “I went into a room next to the hostages ‘room and we hit three terrorists there. I cut my ear, I tried to hear where the hostages were. There was a very thin partition of plywood between us between the room I was in and the hostages’ room.
We heard nothing. I remember saying. So to the people around me who moved them from here to the new terminal. The operation failed. Suddenly I saw the glass break and I realized that someone was shooting at me. I glanced inside, I saw inside the building, about five meters, everyone was lying there.
Automatically, that is, not by automatic firing, instinctively I fired four or five bullets at him through the glass. He shot at me lying down and I saw his head fall. I jumped in quickly. “Slaughter them, but they come to save them. We shouted in Hebrew: ‘These are soldiers, we have come to free you,’ who will very soon come out of the shock.”
He added that the hostages were lying on mattresses on blankets: “It was such a hot night. Everyone gathered in blankets out of some instinct. It is clear that a blanket does not stop a bullet. Slowly they realized that they did not want to kill them, they came to save them.”
Another fighter recounted the moment of the release of the hostages: “When I came out of the building, it was the first time I saw the hostages. They were gathered on the runway. It was a dark night, by this time the lighting in the terminal was already off. I saw a very crowded group of people standing. Our vehicles and we evacuated them. “
One of the fighters recounted the feelings after the success of rescuing the hostages: “How did I feel? Chills. I did not expect such a thing, that Israel would reach as far as Uganda? I enjoyed my life, I enjoyed as much as I earned a million pounds.”
