In the early hours of 25 June 2006, seven Palestinian militants, taking advantage of the darkness and infiltrated through an underground tunnel, successfully attacked an Israeli outpost, causing several casualties and kidnapping a corporal of the IDF Armored Corps, Shalit.
Shalit
After the 19-year-old Shalit was kidnapped, Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committee and the Islamic Army claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, and their demands were clear: if Israel agreed to release all Palestinian prisoners and all underage prisoners, Shalit would also be released.
Since then, the exchange of hostages for Shalit has become an important task for Israel.
In 2009, Netanyahu, who has always taken a hard line on the Palestinian issue, became Israel's prime minister again. He took the Shalit kidnapping very seriously, and negotiations for a hostage exchange were once again on the agenda.
After more than two years of effort, Israel finally agreed to exchange 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for one Israeli soldier, Shalit.
1027：1！
By rescuing its own soldiers at any cost, Israel shocked the world.
Moreover, in the early days of the exchange, Netanyahu warned Hamas that there could not be a single scar on Shalit's body. If he sees a single wound on his soldier, Hamas will get catastrophic revenge!
And so, after five years and four months (1,941 days) in captivity, on October 18, 2011, Shalit finally returned to the arms of his motherland, Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu received Shalit after his release
The lives of soldiers are precious, and for Israel, they can be rescued at any cost; For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it has even more unusual significance.
The veteran politician who served four terms as Israel's prime minister had the highest IQ of any dignitary in the world. It is said that among these dignitaries, only Netanyahu has an IQ of more than 160, and his IQ has reached 180.
His brother, Jonathan Netanyahu, is smarter, more handsome and braver, and a household name not only in Israel, but also in Uganda and Kenya in Africa.
It's just that Jonathan died young. At the age of 30, he was killed in an operation to rescue Israeli hostages at a Ugandan airport and was later awarded a National Hero and promoted to the rank of IDF Special Forces Colonel.
That rescue operation was also renamed Operation Jonathan so that future generations will always remember the bravery of the martyrs.
His younger brother, later prime minister, Netanyahu, has always been tough, advocating a hardline policy on the Palestinian issue and the idea of "taking a hard line on all terrorists" perhaps because of his brother's sacrifice in hostage-rescue operations.
Jonathan Netanyahu
Almost all the terrorist acts that Israel has encountered since its establishment have been Palestine-related. Before we talk about Jonathan and the "Entebbe" hostage rescue operation for which he died, it is worth briefly reviewing the long-standing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The Jewish nation is indeed a people of great suffering. Since being expelled from Palestine by the Romans in 70 AD, the "Great Diaspora" began for nearly 2,000 years.
At the end of the 19th century, the Zionist movement arose, and Jews began to migrate back to Palestine. But at that time, Palestine, which Jews called the "Promised Land", was not a borderland, but more than 500,000 Arabs and Bedouins had been recuperating in that land for years.
In 1917, the British occupied Palestine. The British Crown's government favoured "the establishment of a Jewish nation-state in Palestine," but only on the condition that "no action should be exercised to the detriment of the existing non-Jewish community in Palestine."
After all, at the beginning of the 20th century, Britain was still the world hegemon, and its support undoubtedly set off a wave of Jewish returns, especially the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933 and the subsequent Holocaust in Europe, which further promoted the return of Jews to Palestine.
On Kristallnacht, the glass of Jewish-owned shops was smashed
Because Jews were smart and hardworking, they were able to turn Palestine's unique Faya mandarin into a world-renowned brand through new technology, at a time when Europe and the United States were in the midst of the Great Depression, but this side was prosperous.
Of course, in the stratification of social classes, Jews with capital and technology naturally occupy the top, while Arabs are at the bottom by selling coolies. Naturally, the Arabs were not willing to be oppressed and exploited by these "outsiders", and many conflicts broke out between the two sides.
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing an Arab State and a Jewish State in Palestine, which was categorically rejected by the League of Arab States.
Israel, on the other hand, can't ask for it. On May 14, 1948, Israel was officially established. At the same time, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, representing Arab interests, declared war on Israel, beginning Israel's War of Independence in 1948.
Since then, five more Middle East wars have been fought, and the two sides have been fighting so far, but most of them have won with Israel.
If a frontal conflict cannot be fought, the losing side naturally thinks of resorting to extreme means - terrorist attacks.
In this way, various terrorist organizations have emerged one after another, such as the "PFLP" (full name: Palestinian Liberation Front) under the PLO (full name: Palestine Liberation Organization), "Black September", Kurdistan Workers' Party and other terrorist organizations.
The PFLP was particularly fond of hijacking aircraft, claiming: "The sensational effect of hijacking an aircraft is far greater than the killing of 100 Israeli soldiers on the battlefield." ”
At its peak, they attacked five Western airliners at once, imprisoning 300 passengers in the desert.
And "Black September" is good at direct killing. The first attack of Black September was the assassination of Jordanian Prime Minister Vasfi Thar. One of the assassins earned a permanent place in the history of barbarism by drinking the blood of his victims in full view of the photographer.
During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, Black September "gained fame" for the murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and a German policeman.
The hijacking and hostage-taking incident at Entebbe airport in Uganda in 1976 was the masterpiece of the PFLP.
During this hostage rescue operation, Prime Minister Netanyahu's brother, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan, was tragically killed.
On a crisp morning on June 27, 1976, an Airbus A300 large commercial passenger plane with 258 people took off from Tel Aviv, and this Air France flight 139 will fly over the Mediterranean Sea, stop in Athens, Greece, and be scheduled to land in Paris, France. It is also a regular flight between Tel Aviv - Athens - Paris.
When the plane arrived in Athens, some passengers came down, and some passengers came up, and the security check was not strict at that time. At 12 noon local time, the plane took off again from Athens, and 10 minutes later, it lost contact with the ground.
At this time, the Greek air traffic controllers, who were handing over at noon, had not yet reacted, but the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad discovered an anomaly - the plane may have been hijacked.
True, the plane was hijacked by terrorists. Four terrorists, led by a blonde beauty, ordered the crew to fly the plane to Benghazi, Libya. When the plane landed in Benghazi.
Still
When the plane had just stayed for seven hours, the Airbus A300 passenger plane was still refueling, when it suddenly disengaged the fuel pipeline that was being refueled and forcibly took off.
At 03:15 the next morning, the plane landed at Uganda's Entebbe International Airport, 8,000 kilometers away.
Uganda's location in Africa
While reporting the situation, the Mossad instructed intelligence networks around the world to gather intelligence related to the flight's disappearance.
Thus, on the evening of June 27, a confidential document marked with the words "Special Express-Mossad" was delivered to Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, who was holding a cabinet meeting.
Israeli Prime Minister Rabin
Then, when the flight landed at Entebbe International Airport, the Mossad gained some new information.
There were 10 hijackers, eight of whom were members of the aforementioned PFP and two of whom were members of the German terrorist organization Red Brigade.
Apparently, the hijackers were supported by then-Ugandan President Idi Amin. Not only did Amin land the hijackers at his country's airport, but he also visited hostages and terrorists himself.
President of Uganda, Idi Amin
The tyrant President Amin had a strong relationship with Israel, and he had received military training in Israel. Later, in order to attack Tanzania, Israel refused to provide it with weapons. Rejected, Amin immediately turned his face and severed diplomatic relations with Israel in favor of Palestine.
At 2 p.m. on June 29, terrorists used Uganda's national radio to shout to Israel to release 53 "comrades" held in Israel, West Germany, France, Kenya and other countries by 2 p.m. on July 1, or else kill a hostage every hour.
The hijackers set a deadline of 2 p.m. on July 1 for a 48-hour exchange or the bombing would kill the plane.
On 30 June, all members of the Israeli Cabinet sat in silence in Prime Minister Rabin's official residence, and the matter had reached a critical juncture that required an immediate decision. And Rabin knows that terrorists must never bow down.
The reason is simple: once terrorists are given room to bargain, even if the crisis is resolved, there will be no peace and endless troubles after that.
During the Munich Olympics that year, the "Black September" terrorist organization openly kidnapped Israeli athletes and demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners, and then Prime Minister Mrs. Meir responded categorically - "Never compromise with terrorists!" “
Mrs. Meir
This time, however, the Israeli government surprisingly expressed its willingness to negotiate with the terrorists and called on the hijackers to postpone the deadline until 4 July.
In fact, when the plane was first hijacked, Israel's military and intelligence agencies were busy separately, and the Ministry of Defense first studied the possibility of taking military action to rescue the hostages.
Prime Minister Rabin, who has been a lifelong prime minister, certainly knows not to give in to the hijackers' demands, but rescuing more than 100 hostages 8,000 kilometers away also seems like a fantasy.
The first rush to Uganda, 8,000 kilometers from Tel Aviv, needed to solve the problem of refueling the aircraft, and the raid could not be carried out without the assistance of at least one East African government. And the number of weapons and equipment of the hijackers, the topography of the airport and the structure of the old terminal where the hostages were held need to be understood in order to carry out a successful rescue operation.
At this time, the Mossad, known as one of the world's four major intelligence agencies, is particularly powerful.
With 256 passengers on board, the terrorists left only 105 Israelis and Jews to release the rest of the hostages. Mossad agents then contacted the released hostages extensively. One of the French passengers, who had a military background and a very good memory, provided Mossad agents with details on the number of weapons the hijackers carried.
Mossad agents also persuaded Kenya to allow Israeli aircraft to enter Nairobi airport to refuel. Kenya's condition was that Israel be able to blow up a Ugandan Air Force MiG plane at Emped airport.
In addition, Uganda and Israel have always had friendly relations, and Uganda's Entebbe airport was built with the assistance of the Israeli engineering team, and there are construction drawings of the airport in hand.
In order to minimize the damage of the hostage rescue operation, the Israeli government also copied part of the buildings at Uganda's Entebbe airport with the accuracy of "not even one step", and let special forces soldiers practice it many times to make the assault maneuver accurate to the second.
Israel feared that the hostages would change in the structure of the terminal, and specially sent Mossad agents to take pictures of Entebbe airport over the airport.
Entebbe Airport in 1976
While the military was making adequate preparations for the rescue, the Israeli Government was stalling for time by negotiating with the terrorists, who eventually agreed to postpone the original deadline by 72 hours, until noon on 4 July. This is because Amin is going to Mauritius for the AU Assembly, and the terrorists want to wait for his return and continue negotiations with Israel in his presence.
Undoubtedly, this has bought Israel valuable time.
After several days of careful planning and drills, in the early hours of July 3, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin approved the implementation of the "Operation Thunder" (also known as Operation Entebbe).
Some 280 IDF special forces and Mossad agents also participated in the operation. The commander-in-chief of the operation was Brigadier General Schom, commander of the special operations forces, and the commando was personally led by the commander of the reconnaissance battalion directly under the General Staff, Colonel Netaliahu.
At about 3 p.m., four C-130 Hercules transport aircraft of the Israeli Air Force began a long-distance attack unprecedented in the history of anti-terrorist operations.
Because they were passing through hostile Israeli countries, all military aircraft immediately turned off the radio after takeoff to maintain a distance from which the previous aircraft could be seen. To prevent radar detection by enemy countries, the aircraft flew very low most of the time, sometimes even close to the ground.
The group sailed southeast along the Red Sea, turned southwest in the Gulf of Aden, flew over Ethiopian airspace, and then descended south into the mountainous and forested terrain over Nairobi.
Fortunately, the formation was not detected by the air defense radars of passing countries. According to the plan, at 11:01 p.m., the first Hercules transport plane followed a British Airways passenger plane to land on the runway, successfully evaded radar monitoring, was not detected by the tower, and was only a minute later than planned.
Before the plane could stop, the special operators jumped out of the plane and placed lighting torches along both sides of the runway. The airport runway lights are about to turn off to facilitate the landing of several aircraft behind.
After the plane stopped, a black Mercedes and two Land Rovers drove out of the cabin towards the old terminal. The convoy was modeled after Amin's convoy, and the last few times Amin came to visit hostages was in a Mercedes and two Land Rovers to drive the road. In order to pretend to be a little, there was even an Israeli soldier dressed as black Amin sitting in the black Mercedes. Commando leader Yonatan Netanyahu sat beside him.
As they approached the old terminal where the hostages were being held, two Ugandan sentries realized that Idi Amin had recently purchased a white Mercedes and ordered the vehicle to stop.
At this time, a commando from a Land Rover shot the sentry with a silenced pistol. Unexpectedly, the sentry stood up again, and as a result, the soldiers of the rear car immediately replaced the gun with AKs when they saw this.
Gunfire pierced the night sky. Fearing that terrorists would be alerted prematurely, commandos jumped out of the car and rushed into the terminal as fast as they could.
Still
After storming the departure hall, the special operators shouted in Hebrew "lie down" and "stay where they are", and the Israeli hostages immediately lay on the ground, and the terrorists did not understand, of course, they all stood and became live targets.
Soon, the terrorists here were eliminated. It took only 15 seconds from shooting the first Ugandan soldier to capturing the departure hall.
Several other warplanes also landed. Israeli special forces began searching all parts of the airport terminal to prevent missing hostages.
In the process, they engaged in a brief but intense exchange of fire with Ugandan soldiers and terrorists at the airport tower, and in the end, a total of 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and all the terrorists present were killed.
In order to prevent the Ugandan Air Force from catching up and to fulfill its commitment to Kenya, 11 Ugandan MiG aircraft were blown up, essentially destroying Uganda's air force combat capability.
In terms of hostages, only one hostage happened to be thrown at his side because after lying on the ground, the grenade thrown by the special forces happened to be thrown at his side, which frightened him to stand up again and was killed by the special forces as a terrorist.
On the Israeli side, five commandos were wounded, while the commando leader, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed.
The commandos quickly evacuated the hostages to the planes and loaded Lieutenant Colonel Netanyahu's body onto one of the planes before leaving the airport. The entire operation lasted 53 minutes, of which the attack lasted only 30 minutes.
The rescued hostages returned to Israel
Despite some regrets, the whole Entebbe operation was quite successful. The whole process is comparable to an American blockbuster, which is breathtaking.
Even the annoyed Amin had to sigh after cursing Israel's "barbaric acts", "The grandchildren of the Israeli special forces did a good job!" ”。
In history, the only time Uganda has soared to the top of the global hot search list is this time.
After the news of the successful rescue, Israel boiled over, and the world also cast admiring eyes on Israel.
It is worth mentioning that the terrorist who participated in the hijacking and the leader of the PFLP, Haddad, left before the Israeli raid on Entebbe, and luckily survived. But two years later, in March 1978, the fugitive Haddad was poisoned by the Mossad.
Israel has truly achieved that although it is far from being condemned by terrorists, it is difficult to save its compatriots.
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Netanyahu, the only Israeli commando killed, was promoted to colonel and awarded the title of Combat Hero.
In fact, long before Operation Entebbe, Jonathan was already a hero.
Jonathan Netanyahu was born in March 1946 in New York City, USA, and has two younger brothers, one of whom is the future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Netanyahu brothers
Because his father was a devout and committed Zionist, when Israel was established in 1948, the family packed up and moved back to Israel with excitement.
His father accepted a professorship at Cornell University, and the family moved back to the United States with his father.
In 1963, in his third year of high school, Jonathan returned to his native Israel and joined the IDF paratrooper brigade. He then fought as a commander in the Six-Day War.
After the war, Jonathan married his longtime girlfriend Tutty. After their marriage, they moved to Boston, where he studied at Harvard University.
Jonathan and Tutty
Jews have always been smarter, and Jonathan is the best of the best, and his first semester at Harvard has been on the president's list of commendations.
During his studies, Israel was engaged in a "war of attrition" with Egypt and Jordan, with frequent skirmishes along the borders of the three countries. Because of this, Netanyahu believes that he should stay in his home country instead of enjoying a comfortable study life abroad.
In 1968, he returned to Israel with his lover, Tuti. He transferred to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to study mathematics and philosophy.
Shortly thereafter, he left school and returned to the IDF. He joined the IDF's Special Elite Unit in the early 1970s and rose through the ranks to lead an elite paratrooper unit. Later, his two younger brothers also served in the unit.
As a member of the Special Forces, Jonathan is brave and resourceful, and has carried out many special operations.
Jonathan seems to have been born like Paul Kochakin, with a deep faith, cleverness and courage, and a fearless spirit of sacrifice. No wonder after Jonathan's death, many Israeli parents named their boys Yoni (Jonathan's nickname)
"Death does not scare me," he wrote in a letter to a friend. "I'm not afraid of death because I rarely believe in life without purpose. If it were necessary to sacrifice my life to reach an important goal, I would do so willingly. “
Jonathan's real rise to fame in the Israeli special forces began in 1971, when the aforementioned Arafat-led PLO-led Fatah Fatah faction created the "Black September" terrorist organization rampant.
The plane blown up by terrorists in the Munich massacre
In 1972, after the "Black September" caused the appalling Munich Massacre during the Munich Olympics, Israel launched a series of retaliatory actions based on the principle that "those who kill us Israel, although far away". Jonathan volunteered to participate in the operation in Beirut on April 19, 1973, and sneaked into the apartment of Abu Yusuf, the senior leader of Black September, and assassinated him.
Jonathan, the last to leave the apartment, took a seemingly important file bag when the police car arrived in Lebanon. It turned out that these documents turned out to be PLO terrorist operations throughout Israel. Jonathan's move undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives.
However, the death of the hero is not always like in the movie, standing up at the most critical moment and making a heroic sacrifice.
During Operation Entebbe, Jonathan led the team to the front, and just as he rushed to the steps of the terminal, he was hit in the chest by a bullet and fell without leaving a last word. The commandos behind him did not stop to take care of their commander, but the deputy commander then led the team to rescue the hostages.
In this way, Jonathan did not even see the hostages he was trying to rescue, let alone whether the hostages he was trying to rescue were safe and sound.
But that does not prevent the people of Israel from commemorating him in various ways. His own brother, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visits his grave every year.
This is 2020~
2014~
2012~
2010~
Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, "The pain caused by Yoni's death has increased with the years, and it is difficult to find solace." ”
Israeli special forces rushed 8,000 kilometers, took a total of 53 minutes, rescued 103 hostages, killed 45 robbers and defenders, and only one person died on our side, which is the most perfect hostage rescue operation in history.
This mission is like a myth, made up of cleverness, boldness, self-sacrifice and dedication to life and loyalty to the country, and it is not about revenge or aggression. It is so pure that it represents the national qualities of which the people of Israel are proud.
In 2019, Netanyahu wrote on Twitter after sweeping the scenes for his brother,
"My brother Yoni, it's been 43 years. I miss you every day. ”