Operation "Yonatan"

Flashes of lightning lit up the three Hercules planes flying towards Entebbe, like flying hippopotamuses lumbering through the storm. The sound of thunder drowned out the noise of the planes’ motors.

Yoni had been dozing lightly until he had begun having nightmares. He could see it all before his eyes - the darkened airfield, the control tower, the Ugandan soldiers, the old passenger terminal, dozens of confused Israeli hostages lying on the ground holding their children while above them, nervous, red-eyed terrorists threatened with machine- guns.

"It will be fantastic if we can manage it with fewer than ten hostages getting killed..." whispered Arik anxiously.

Yoni shifted in his seat. Six hours had passed since their long journey began. His foot had fallen asleep and he felt pins and needles. "Don’t think about it Arik, it’ll work out," he said. "If we haven’t yet been ordered to turn back, its a sure sign that the Government and the General Staff think we can pull it off successfully! It has to succeed, there’s no other hope!!!"

"Maybe twenty dead hostages..." muttered Arik doubtfully.

"If every team does what it’s supposed to, like we practised yesterday and this morning, and if everyone remembers that we mustn’t let anything happen to the children ... we’ll all return home safely," replied Yoni.

Really? What made him so sure? Arik’s anxiety erased the last traces of sleep from Yoni’s eyes. The cargo planes had nearly covered the twenty-five hundred miles separating Israel from Uganda.

Soldiers and officers in battledress sat inside the Land-Rover jeeps and armored cars tied to the floor of the plane. The belly of the Hercules was a world unto itself. Yoni glanced at the black Mercedes with the Ugandan flag tied to its hood. It was a brilliant idea to pretend that Idi Amin, the president of Uganda, was coming in his official car to visit the hostages. The precious minutes it would take for the trick to be discovered would be enough for Yoni and his men to penetrate into the airport lounge and eliminate the terrorists. If only everything went as planned! Yoni prayed.

Outside it was dark. "We’re almost there," whispered Arik.
Yoni’s heart pounded with excitement. An opportunity like this comes to a soldier once in a life time. He was a young man, tough but sensitive. He had fought in the Six-Day-War, and earned a medal for exceptional bravery. Most of his adult years had been devoted to the army. As an officer it was not easy for him to serve in uniform, carrying weapons day and night, with the responsibility of leading elite paratroop units. Now that he had been chosen to spearhead such a tremendous operation, he thought only of the coming mission.

He went over the details of the plan in his mind. Then he left his seat and approached Colonel Dan Shomron, and the two of them went into the pilot’s cabin.

"What’s new, David?" asked Yoni, his cheerful face hiding his fears.
"Zero hour is nearly here! "Don’t worry, you’ll see it’ll be fine - we’ll succeed!"
And what if we don’t?" asked David the pilot. "If we fail, Idi Amin will have us hanged - we’re dealing with the dictator of an African country!"

"There’s no alternative! The man is a coward and a collaborator! He won’t hesitate to help liquidate the hostages. One of his favorite sports is murder," said Yoni. For a moment there was silence in the cabin.

Fifteen minutes later, the pilot announced that they were approaching Entebbe Airport. A heavy rain cloud hung over the area, and the runway was lit. The Israeli commandos prepared to jump out the minute the plane landed. Yoni stood at their head, together with Arik, his second-in-command, and the radio operator. The plane’s wheels touched the ground lightly and rolled towards the terminal. Immediately afterwards the other two planes also landed. Two teams would deal with the Ugandan soldiers, and three teams would enter the terminal, take on the terrorists and get the hostages into the planes. The plan called for split-second timing.

The back of the plane opened wide. Yoni and his men ran forward and jumped into the black limousine. In the darkness they raced towards the old terminal. Two Ugandan soldiers gaped at the car as it hurtled towards them with its strange passengers, and were immediately shot down. There was an eerie silence. Yoni started to worry - everything seemed familiar, just as he and his friends had practiced, so why the quiet? Where were the hostages? Could they have been moved elsewhere?

At that moment, the men in the control tower saw suspicious movements - Hercules planes, a strange car, men running around the airfield. They switched off the airfield lights and opened fire.

Meanwhile Yoni and his men had reached the building. A burst of fire shattered the silence. The German terrorist standing by the terminal window spun round was shot and dropped to the ground. Ilan spotted the German woman near the building’s entrance, a revolver in one hand and a hand grenade in the other. Hearing the shots, she looked confused for a moment. Ilan took careful aim, and she slumped to the ground.

Yoni stood outside. A few feet behind him a Ugandan soldier stepped out of the shadows and fired a burst at him. Yoni turned and fell, hit in the neck.

"Yoni’s been hit, he needs help!" yelled a soldier in panic.

Men surrounded Yoni and dragged him bleeding behind a low wall near the terminal. Gilad, the medic, examined Yoni’s wound. "He’s in bad shape," he said.

Inside the terminal lobby, a battle raged. Gunfire and exploding grenades could be heard everywhere. Shocked hostages hugged the ground, clutching their trembling children. Who were the men who had appeared so suddenly?

A soldier shouted in Hebrew through a megaphone. "Lie flat on the floor. We’re  here to rescue you! It’s going to be all right!"

"Israeli soldiers!" one of the hostages shouted.

A short, wiry soldier carrying a big rifle smiled at the stunned hostages and said in Hebrew, "Are you OK? Come on. Let’s go home!"

"Home? How? From here? From Africa?" asked a lady holding a little boy.

The soldier answered calmly: "We have a plane waiting outside. Hurry!"

Shaking with fright and relief, more than a hundred hostages stumbled blindly after their rescuers, crying and sobbing. They ran towards the plane, climbed aboard and collapsed.

Despite the confusion and the need for haste the soldiers counted the hostages to make sure that nobody had been left behind. They lost count and re-counted. An old lady, Dora Bloch, was missing. She had been taken earlier to a Ugandan  hospital, after collapsing. Later it was learned that Idi Amin’s soldiers had dragged her out of her hospital bed and murdered her.

Everyone wept with excitement. Outside, a team of soldiers was still firing bazookas at Idi Amin’s MIG planes on the airstrip, so they could not follow them.

During these last few minutes, Yoni died in the medic’s arms. The fighter to whom the hostages owed their lives left them at the moment of victory. At the time, the rescued hostages didn’t know who he was - but the soldiers knew, and they grieved for him. They had lost a true leader.
 

                                           Department of Education, Jewish National Fund
                                                under the direction of Yehezkel Harel
 

Back to History

Back to Contents