There have been many such crises in the world which have shocked the whole world. To overcome the crisis, countries conducted some military operations, including the name of Israel’s brave military mission “Operation Thunderbolt”. However, Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad single-handedly showed the whole world what its power is and how it carries out any mission.
On June 27, 1976, a French Airbus 139 with a dozen crew members and 246 passengers took off from Bengurian International Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, at 11 p.m. This flight took off for Athens, the capital of Greece. After reaching Athens, 58 more passengers boarded but 4 terrorists hijacked this Paris-bound flight as soon as it took off. All of them had boarded from Athens airport.
The terrorists landed the Paris-bound flight in Benghazi, Libya, refueled, then landed at Entebbe airport in Uganda. The President of Uganda at that time was Idi Amin, who used to have a figure of thirty-six from Israel. He gave shelter to these terrorists in Uganda and deployed his army by imprisoning the hostages in the transit hall.
The incident of hijack of the passenger plane caused a sensation in the whole world including Israel. At the same time, the terrorists demanded the release of a total of 53 prisoners and 5 million US dollars in exchange for releasing the hostages. For this the Israeli government was given 48 hours. Although the Israeli government refused to deal with the terrorists secretly, it was also necessary to free the hostages. In such a situation, the government told the terrorists that they need some more time till July 4 to fulfill the demands.
The terrorists felt that the government would fulfill their demands, so on June 30, about 48 people were released. Most of these included elderly and sick people. Then a hundred more non-Israeli citizens were also released. On the other hand, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was working on the entire mission. On July 3, the Israeli cabinet launched ‘Operation Thunderbolt’. After this a team of 100 Israeli commandos flew to Entebbe Airport in Uganda.
Black Mercedes cars were also loaded into these Hercules planes as Ugandan President Idi Amin was famous for driving black Mercedes in those days. Mossad’s plan was that in Operation Thunderbolt, the soldiers would go to the airport by these cars to dodge the terrorists and Ugandan soldiers. An input from the Mossad was missed after the troops arrived. It turned out that Idi Amin was out of the country at that time, and he was now driving a white Mercedes instead of a black one.
Ugandan soldiers became suspicious as Israeli soldiers disembarked from a black Mercedes at Entebbe airport. By the time they could figure something out, Israeli soldiers had piled up many. Then the Israeli soldiers went up to the captives in the transit hall and shouted in Hebrew and broken English and said in Hebrew and broken English, we are Israeli soldiers and have come to save you, all of you lie down. Then on the spot of the hostages, a grenade was thrown in the room of the terrorists and three terrorists were killed.
Many Ugandan soldiers, including terrorists, were killed in this 53-minute operation, but three innocent civilians lost their lives. Israeli soldiers also destroyed more than 30 Ugandan Air Force aircraft while taking hostages. In this brave military mission, 10 commandos of Israel were injured while one commando was killed, it was none other than Jonathan Netanyahu, the elder brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.