Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists.
Operation Entebbe or Operation Thunderbolt was a successful counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976.A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner with 248 passengers had been hijacked by two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine External Operations (PFLP-EO) under orders of Wadie Haddad (who had earlier broken away from the PFLP of George Habash), and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells. The hijackers had the stated objective to free 40 Palestinian and affiliated militants imprisoned in Israel and 13 prisoners in four other countries in exchange for the hostages. The flight, which had originated in Tel Aviv with the destination of Paris, was diverted after a stopover in Athens via Benghazi to Entebbe, the main airport of Uganda. The Ugandan government supported the hijackers, and dictator Idi Amin, who had been informed of the hijacking from the beginning, personally welcomed them. After moving all hostages from the aircraft to a disused airport building, the hijackers separated all Israelis and several non-Israeli Jews from the larger group and forced them into a separate room. Over the following two days, 148 non-Israeli hostages were released and flown out to Paris. Ninety-four, mainly Israeli, passengers along with the 12-member Air France crew, remained as hostages and were threatened with death.The IDF acted on information provided by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. The hijackers threatened to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met. This threat led to the planning of the rescue operation. These plans included preparation for armed resistance from the Uganda Army.The operation took place at night. Israeli transport planes carried 100 commandos over 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes. Of the 106 remaining hostages, 102 were rescued and three were killed. The other hostage was in a hospital and was later killed. Five Israeli commandos were wounded, and one, unit commander Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed. Netanyahu was the older brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who would later become Prime Minister of Israel. All the hijackers and forty-five Ugandan soldiers were killed, and eleven Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda's air force were destroyed. Kenyan sources supported Israel, and in the aftermath of the operation, Idi Amin issued orders to retaliate and kill Kenyans present in Uganda. As a result, 245 Kenyans in Uganda were killed and 3,000 fled the country.Operation Entebbe, which had the military codename Operation Thunderbolt, is sometimes referred to retroactively as Operation Jonathan in memory of the unit's leader, Yonatan Netanyahu.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; Hebrew: צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל Tsva ha-Hagana le-Yisra'el; lit. 'The Army of Defense for Israel'), commonly referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal (צה״ל), are the combined military forces of the State of Israel, consisting of three branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force and the Israeli Navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel. The IDF is headed by the Chief of General Staff, who is subordinate to the Israeli Defense Minister.
An order from David Ben-Gurion on 26 May 1948 officially set up the IDF as a conscript army formed from the ranks of the Haganah, Irgun and Lehi paramilitary organizations. The IDF has participated in all of the armed conflicts involving Israel since its independence. According to the think-tank organization GlobalSecurity.org, the number of wars and border conflicts in which the IDF has been involved in throughout its short history makes it one of the most battle-trained armed forces in the world. While it originally operated on three fronts—against Lebanon and Syria in the north, Jordan and Iraq in the east, and Egypt in the south—the IDF has shifted its focus primarily to southern Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories since the signings of the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty and the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, with some incidents occurring across its border with Syria due to instability caused by the ongoing Syrian Civil War.
The IDF is unique amongst the militaries of the world due to its regulated conscription of women since its formation. It is one of the most prominent institutions in Israeli society due to its influence on the country's economy, culture and political scene. The IDF uses several technologies developed within Israel, with many of them made specifically to cater to the IDF's needs in its operational environment in the Levant, such as the Merkava main battle tank, the Achzarit armored personnel carrier, the Iron Dome air defense system, the Trophy active protection system for vehicles, and the Galil and Tavor assault rifles. The Uzi submachine gun is an Israeli invention and was used by the IDF until December 2003, ending a service that began in 1954. Since 1967, the IDF has had close military relations with the United States, including in development cooperation, such as on the F-15I jet, the THEL laser defense system, and the Arrow missile defense system.
The IDF is believed to have had an operational nuclear weapons capability since 1967, possibly possessing between 80 and 400 nuclear warheads, with delivery systems forming a nuclear triad of plane launched-missiles, Jericho III intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched cruise missiles.