No Mission Is Impossible

by Michael Bar-Zohar

  Peres, Gur and Hofi hurried to Rabin’s office. Gur presented the plan in detail and received guarded approval from Rabin, who ruled that the final decision would be made by an extraordinary cabinet meeting on Saturday, shortly before the planes were set to leave for Entebbe. The code name was to be “Thunderball.”

  During the meeting, Peres wrote a note and slipped it to Rabin:

  Yitzhak—here is the last refinement in the planning: instead of a military ground service vehicle—a large Mercedes with flags will descend. Idi Amin will appear to be coming home from Mauritius. I don’t know if it is possible, but it is interesting. —

  The IDF planners couldn’t find a black Mercedes similar to Idi Amin’s, but they did find a white one of the same size in Gaza. It was immediately brought into the departure area and painted black. Amin’s double was at hand, and the Sayeret mixed black dye to paint his face.

  Then, just as all the pieces seemed to be coming tenuously together, an unexpected problem arose. Peres was scheduled to host a distinguished foreign visitor for dinner at his home: Polish-American professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the future U.S. national security adviser during the Carter administration. Gur was also invited, but he had to cancel when his father-in-law suddenly died.

  Brzezinski was cordially received, and Sonia, Peres’s wife, cooked her specialty for him: honey chicken. Mid-dinner, Brzezinki surprised his hosts by throwing a direct question at Peres:

  “Why don’t you send the IDF to rescue the hostages at Entebbe?”

  For a moment, the defense minister was speechless. But then, determined to preserve the secrecy, he explained why the mission was impossible: Entebbe was too far, Israel didn’t have enough intelligence and MiG fighters and Ugandan battalions were stationed at the airport.

  Brzezinski was not convinced.

  At the Fantasy Council’s last meeting, the participants felt confident that the mission would succeed. The officers asked Peres a few-last minute questions:

  “If the control tower asks our aircraft to identify themselves, should we answer?”

  Peres and Gur decided that the pilots shouldn’t answer.

  “And what about the Air France crew?”

  “Bring them home,” Peres said. “We should treat them as Israelis in every way.”

  With the final cabinet meeting approaching to decide if the mission would occur, Peres asked Gur, “When should the planes take off?”

  After considering this, the chief of staff answered, “From Ben-Gurion Airport to Sharm el Sheikh in Sinai—at one P.M.; then from Sharm el Sheikh—between four and five P.M.”

  This meant the planes should leave before the decisive cabinet meeting even took place. Peres then authorized the planes to take off before getting approval from the top. He reasoned that if the cabinet decided against the mission, the planes could still be turned around and brought back.

  On Saturday, at 2:30 P.M., the cabinet met; having a meeting on the Sabbath was unusual and it had happened only a few times in Israel’s history. Rabin expressed his full support of the operation, so now all three main players—the prime minister, the minister of defense and the chief of staff—were united. After a brief discussion, the cabinet voted and unanimously approved Thunderball.

  At 3:30 P.M. the good news was radioed to Sharm el Sheikh, and fourteen minutes later four Rhinos took off. They carried 180 elite soldiers and their arms and vehicles, and the black Mercedes. The soldiers spread swiftly over the large bellies of the Rhinos, curled on the metal floor and tried to get some sleep. A bit later, the flying command post, an Oryx (IAF Boeing), took off, and yet another Oryx, one carrying medical teams and equipment, flew toward Nairobi. The four-thousand-kilometer journey had begun.

  At 11:00 P.M., the pinpoint lights of Entebbe began to emerge from the darkness. The Rhinos had flown at an extremely high altitude, so as to elude all radar stations along their way. A minute later, the first Hercules landed on the illuminated runway, hiding from Ugandan radar behind the British airliner that had landed just before it. It rolled forward on the tarmac, miraculously unnoticed by the control tower.

  Soldiers of the Doron and Tali units leapt from the plane and placed lit torches by the runway lights. Their assumption was that in a few minutes the built-in runway lights would be turned off by the Ugandans as a defensive measure, and so only their torches would illuminate the runway for the planes yet to come. The soldiers ran ahead of the Rhino and placed their torches intermittently along 540 yards. The aircraft then stopped, and out of it drove the black Mercedes and two Land Rover jeeps; they sped toward the Old Terminal. In the Mercedes, beside the black-painted “Idi Amin,” crouched Yoni Netanyahu, Muki Betzer, Giora Zussman and their men.

  They were barely one hundred meters from the old control tower when two Ugandan soldiers appeared in front of them. One ran away but the second pointed his weapon at the Mercedes and tried to stop it. Yoni and Giora drew their silenced handguns. “Don’t shoot,” Muki grunted, certain that the Ugandan was only going through the motions and probably wouldn’t open fire; but when the Ugandan did not lower his weapon the two men shot him, first with their handguns and then with a Kalashnikov. Their shots echoed loudly in the night and cost the Israelis their element of surprise. Instead of reaching the Old Terminal gates the cars were forced to stop fifty yards from the old control tower, where the commandos jumped out of their vehicles and sprinted toward the building, killing another Ugandan soldier who tried to block their path.

  Muki and his men broke into the Old Terminal through a side door. The former departure hall was illuminated, and the hostages were lying on the floor inside, most of them asleep. With bursts from their guns Muki and his men killed the four terrorists who were guarding the hall’s corners. Only one of the terrorists managed to fire back; the others were all killed before drawing their weapons. Using portable megaphones, the soldiers warned the hostages, in Hebrew, to stay down where they were. Some unfortunately got up and were shot at once. Six were wounded and three killed. Despite this tragic loss, the first stage of the mission was a success, with only fifteen or so seconds having passed between the shooting of the first Ugandan and the takeover of the departure hall. Phase one was now completed, and four terrorists lay dead.

  While Muki Betzer was scanning the departure hall, he received a call over his radio; it was Captain Tamir Pardo, the twenty-three-year-old Sayeret communications officer (and a future head of the Mossad), who informed him that Yoni had been shot in the garden adjacent to the hall entrance. “Muki, assume command!” Pardo urgently said. He had just killed the Ugandan soldier who had shot Yoni. Some later claimed Yoni had been shot by Ugandans firing from the old control tower; others believed he had been shot by a terrorist.

  An IDF doctor soon arrived and got Yoni to the Rhino. Muki picked up his radio transceiver and announced that he was assuming command.

  Other commandos systematically mopped up the remaining passages and halls in the building. In the “small hall” behind the departure hall they found no one, but when Giora’s detail moved into the VIP lounge they clashed with two Ugandan soldiers and killed them. Suddenly, two European-looking men appeared before the Israelis, ignoring their calls to identify themselves. At first the commandos thought they were hostages, but when they didn’t answer the Israelis’ calls, the commandos realized they were terrorists and opened fire. One of the terrorists was carrying a grenade, which exploded, and both were killed.

  During the mopping up of the VIP lounge, the customs hall and the second floor, more Ugandan soldiers were killed, but nearly all of the sixty Ugandans stationed at the airport escaped and fled. In total, twelve Ugandans were killed in various firefights.

  Suddenly, the lights in the entire airport were cut off, and Entebbe was plunged in darkness. Luckily, the runway where the first aircraft had landed was illuminated by the commandos’ torches, and the remaining Rhinos landed easily and discharged more soldiers and armored vehicles.

  Back in Israel, Rab
in, Peres and Gur anxiously listened to the direct reports radioed from Entebbe. At 11:10 P.M. Dan Shomron’s slightly hoarse voice came on, saying, “Everything is fine. I’ll report later.” Eight minutes passed, and Shomron again radioed: “Low tide.” That was the code phrase that all the planes had landed safely. He followed this up with the code word “Palestine,” announcing the assault on the Old Terminal. Shomron himself drove his jeep to that building and continued commanding from there.

  As gunfire was still blasting in and around the Old Terminal, the just-arrived units had set off on their assignments. The half-tracks of Major Shaul Mofaz silenced the old control tower with a lethal burst. Another Mofaz paratrooper squad killed eight Ugandan soldiers in two clashes. They then joined the forces still mopping up the Old Terminal.

  Colonel Matan Vilnai led his forces to the New Terminal. After their breaking in, the brightly illuminated building suddenly went completely dark, and the operation had to be continued with no lights. In accordance with the plan, Vilnai’s men did not open fire on the Ugandan soldiers they encountered, allowing them to escape, and in two cases arrested Ugandans and locked them up in the terminal offices. It was then that Vilnai heard two shots from the north of the terminal. On the stairs he found one of his soldiers, Sergeant Surin Hershko, lying wounded, probably shot by a Ugandan security officer. Hershko was quickly evacuated, and his comrades kept advancing, but because of the darkness they couldn’t find the entrance to the new control tower.

  Yet, even as Vilnai and his men struggled in this confusion, the battle had already reached its finale. The IDF had conquered the airport. Its commanders had located the fuel dumps but decided not to refuel the Rhinos in Entebbe, as that would have delayed their departure by two hours. Matan Vilnai and the captain of the first Rhino, Colonel Shani, advised Shomron now not to delay their departure unless absolutely necessary, so Shomron agreed that they would refuel in Nairobi. There an IDF unit was already waiting, commanded by Ehud Barak, along with an airborne field hospital with twelve doctors and two operating rooms, which had arrived from Israel.

  In the Entebbe Old Terminal the liberated hostages were stunned. The arrival of the Israelis and the lightning speed of the encounter, which had left their captors dead, seemed to them a miracle. When they came to their senses they clustered around the soldiers, hugging and embracing them in an explosion of joy and gratitude. Some wept, others joined in prayer. But the troops swiftly put an end to the euphoria. They told the hostages and the Air France crew to gather their belongings and in orderly fashion led them out of the building. They escorted them in the dark and kept counting them, to ensure that all the hostages were accounted for.

  At 11:32 P.M. the code word “Jefferson” echoed in radio receivers in Tel Aviv. It meant the evacuation of the hostages had begun. And a minute later: “Move everything to Galila,” meaning the hostages were boarding the Rhinos.

  The soldiers carried the wounded and the bodies of the hostages killed in the crossfire into an aircraft. One woman was missing: an elderly Israeli, Dora Bloch, who had taken ill earlier and been transferred to a Kampala hospital. Soon she would be murdered by the Ugandans.

  Everything else proceeded according to plan, but at 11:50 P.M. the powerful antennae at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv intercepted a worrying message radioed from “Almond Grove,” the Sayeret of Yoni Netanyahu, to the unit’s medical officer in Entebbe. It was a laconic call for medics, mentioning “Two Ekaterina”—code for “two wounded.” But nothing was said about the identity of the wounded.

  The military vehicles and units drove back into the Rhinos. The soldiers of Lieutenant Omer Bar-Lev, son of a former chief of staff, blew up the eight MiG jets stationed at the airport to prevent them from chasing and attacking the much slower Rhinos on their way home.

  At 11:51 P.M. the radio message everyone in Tel Aviv was praying for finally came—“Mount Carmel.” It meant the end of the evacuation. The operation was completed and all the planes had taken off.

  “The heart jumps with joy,” Shimon Peres wrote jubilantly in his diary.

  After the planes took off from Entebbe, Peres instructed Borka Bar-Lev, Idi Amin’s former friend, to call Amin from Tel Aviv. Perhaps the Ugandan dictator had now returned from Mauritius, Peres thought. To Borka’s surprise, Amin himself picked up the phone. He had returned a bit earlier to Kampala.

  Borka spoke to him using a well-rehearsed scenario, one intended to create the impression that Amin had been secretly involved in the rescue; that might ignite a conflict between him and the terrorists he had so eagerly assisted. The phone conversation was recorded by the IDF.

  “I called to thank you, Mr. President, for what you did!”

  “Yes,” Amin said, “I advise you to accept my friends’ demands.”

  Borka was taken aback. “I want to thank you for what you did for the hostages.”

  “Yes, yes,” was Amin’s response. “You should negotiate with my friends and make the exchange with them. The hostages will be released, and so would the prisoners.”

  This dialogue continued for a few minutes, until Borka understood: Amin did not know that the hostages had been liberated! He was sitting in his palace, discussing the ultimatum and upcoming negotiations, completely ignorant of the fact that the Israelis had been to Entebbe, freed the hostages and taken off. None of his officers had dared to inform him that a few miles from his palace a firefight had taken place, the terrorists were dead and the Israeli hostages were on their way back home!

  “Thank you, sir,” Borka mumbled and hung up, dismayed.

  All the aircraft landed safely in Nairobi. The IDF medical team treated the wounded as the Rhinos refueled. Shortly afterward, the planes took off and headed for Israel.

  Very few of the liberated hostages slept during the long journey. They were too excited by this extraordinary experience. When the IDF spokesman published a short communiqué about the mission, “IDF forces tonight rescued the hostages from Entebbe airport, including the Air France crew,” an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm and rejoicing swept the country.

  An elated outburst shook the IDF general staff when Motta Gur informed his officers of the mission’s success. He also made a speech, saying, “I cannot sum up the operation even in this early stage without stressing the drive and the influence on its execution that were centered in one man . . . who pressed on and pushed in every direction, both up and down, for the operation. And this is the defense minister, who deserves all the credit.”

  In the prime minister’s office, Rabin and Peres exchanged excited greetings with Knesset members Begin and Elimelech Rimalt and Yitzhak Navon, chairman of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. Rabin briefed the president and Golda Meir, while Peres woke up his wife, Sonia. The fantastic news spread throughout the world, and messages of amazement and admiration poured in from all over.

  But then, in the wee hours all this joy was painfully interrupted. Gur came to the defense minister’s office. Shimon Peres was lying on his narrow couch, trying to get some sleep.

  “Shimon, Yoni is dead,” Gur said. “He was hit by a bullet in the back. Apparently he was shot from the old control tower. The bullet pierced his heart.”

  Peres, devastated, burst into tears.

  The following day, the Fourth of July, 1976 (the two-hundredth anniversary of the United States), the rescue planes landed in Israel and were received by a festive, flag-waving crowd. The operation became legendary in Israel and in the outside world. Flowery articles, books, TV shows and movies hailed the glory of the IDF soldiers. Foreign nations regarded the operation as a symbol of courage, dedication and impressive military capability.

  All the terrorists who had participated in the hijacking and the imprisonment in Entebbe had been killed, with the exception of Wadie Haddad, head of the Popular Front, who had left Entebbe before the IDF raid. Knowing he was now in the crosshairs of the Israelis, he found refuge in Baghdad, hoping he would be protected there. It took nearly two years f
or the Mossad to reach him. Israeli agents discovered Haddad’s weakness: he adored fine Belgian chocolate. The Mossad laced a box of mouth-watering Godivas with an untraceable poison and recruited one of Haddad’s trusted lieutenants, who brought him the deadly box. Haddad gobbled down the chocolates, all by himself. A few weeks later, the ailing arch-terrorist was urgently flown, in critical condition, to an East German clinic, where he died in March 1978.

  That same year, Idi Amin’s regime collapsed following a war he instigated against neighboring Tanzania. Amin escaped to Libya and later to Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death in 2003.

  The IDF mission in Entebbe had been an astounding success. And yet, Yoni Netanyahu’s death left a dark shadow over the popular rejoicing. The IDF changed the name of Operation Thunderball to Operation Yonatan. Peres eulogized Yoni at his funeral:

  “What burdens didn’t we load on Yoni and his comrades’ shoulders? The most dangerous of the IDF’s tasks and the most daring of its operations; the missions that were the farthest from home and the closest to the enemy; the darkness of night and the solitude of the fighter; the taking of risks, over and over again, in times of peace and in times of war. There are times when the nation’s fate depends on a handful of volunteers. . . . Yonatan was a commander of valor. He overcame his enemies by his courage. He conquered his friends’ hearts by the wisdom of his heart. He didn’t fear danger and victories didn’t make him vain. By falling he caused an entire nation to raise her head high.”

  Shimon Peres quoted King David’s biblical verses mourning his friend Jonathan: “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful” (2 Samuel 1:26).

  SHIMON PERES, LATER ISRAEL’S NINTH PRESIDENT

  “From the first moment I was determined not to yield to the terrorists. We had to find a way to liberate the hostages. I had the support of a fine group of generals—Shomron, Adam, Peled, Gazit and their close colleagues. At the beginning our plans were vague. We perfected and honed the project hour by hour. But I felt I was completely alone in that matter.