Every Indian will remember the surgical strike our ARMY did on the terrorists hiding in Pakistan in 2016, we supported that move as it was a retaliation to the URI terrorist attack where they killed our soldiers in their sleep. What a coward move! But did you know, Israel did the same thing but on a bigger level way before it was cool.
On 27th June, 1976, the Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner took off from the Tel Aviv airport, Israel with over 240 passengers and crew members to reach their destination Paris. The flight made a stopover at the Athens airport, Greece, in order to refuel their aircraft.
The flight was now supposed to move to Paris but till now it was Hijacked by Wilfred Böse and his helper female comrade, they had teamed up with two members of a breakaway faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. After hijacking the flight, they changed it's route and landed to Benghazi airport, Libya.
But at that time Libya was used to provide crude oil to many countries so, due to international pressure they would not be able to provide any assistance to the hijackers. Also, Israel was close to Libya so there was threat on the hijackers to get attacked by Israeli army and might end up losing in their mission.
So, they compelled the pilots to take off from Benghazi and make their way to Entebbe Airport at Uganda. At that time Uganda was under the rule of dictator, Idi Amin. He was known for his cruelty, people were used to call him "Butcher Of Uganda" for his brutality, and it is believed that some 300,000 people were killed and countless others tortured during his presidency.
The hijackers reached the Entebbe Airport without any harm. After landing there, they kept all the hostages into the Old Terminal of the airport, which was 2 Km away from the runway. There they separated Jewish hostages from others. But then the hijackers committed a mistake, they released the hostages which belonged to other countries or non-Jewish.
MOSSAD contacted them and recovered every piece of information which proved to be deadly against the commandeers. on 3rd July afternoon a force of more than 200 Israeli soldiers took off, bound for Entebbe. They took 5 Hercules aircrafts with them out of which 3 were filled with commandos 4th one was empty to carry the freed hostages with them and last aircraft contained signal jammers, communication system to make sure all teams stay connected and medical staff to ensure the safety of every person on-board.
It was the touchdown time at the Entebbe Airport at 1am midnight, the soldiers got off the famous Idi Amin black Mercedes in which he was used to travel. But few months ago he changed it to white. And the Ugandan soldiers spotted the difference and started firing at the planes. At this time the Israeli commandos burst out at the Ugandan army like death.
There is an old proverb " Fortune favours the brave", the same happened in this case, Israeli commandos fought with complete bravery and managed to release all the hostages without any casualty of any hostage. But they suffered a crucial person of the operation, Yonatan Netanyahu, the leader of the Operation Thunderbolt. During the return from Uganda, Netanyahu was making sure that every person gets on-board safely, but at the same time he was shot by a Ugandan soldier at the back and due to heavy blood loss, Israel lost their brave soldier in mid-flight.
When Idi Amin got to know that this much happened behind his back. Dora Bloch(Israeli-American) was unknowingly left behind because due to bad medical condition she has to be hospitalised immediately. Idi Amin to rage with anger, dragged her out of the hospital and shot her dead in front of whole crowd.
These were two heavy losses which Israel faced in this fearless operation and made the world realise that if any country tries to fight them, they would have to think twice before making a move.
After this tedious and tiresome operation, when the soldiers finally returned to their motherland, they were warmly welcomed by the people of Israel and their family members.
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