Operation Thunderbolt was a counter terrorist hostage rescue mission which turned out to be successful. The commandos of the Israel Defense Force (IDF), on 4th July 1976 carried out this mission at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda.
As per Wikipedia, an Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner was hijacked by the two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine with the orders of Wadie Haddad and another two members from the German Revolutionary Cells. During the hijack, the airplane had 248 passengers.
The main objective of the hijack was to free 40 Palestinian and the militants imprisoned in Israel in exchange for the hostages. The Paris destined flight from Tel Aviv was diverted to Athens via Benghazi to Entebbe, Uganda. The Ugandan government was aware of this hijack and gladly welcomed the hijackers.
According to Wikipedia, the hostages were shifted to the airport building where the hijackers separated the Israelis and the non-Israeli Jews and forced them to a separate room. Around 148 non-Israelis were released in the following two days. They were flown back to Paris. However, the Israelis who were still held hostages were threatened to death.
When the IDF gained the information that the hostages were threatened to be killed if the prisoner release demand of the hijackers were not met, they immediately started planning the rescue operation. For the rescue operation, 100 commandos were flown to Uganda and the operation took place at night. In this rescue operation around 3 hostages were killed, five Israeli commandos were wounded and Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the unit commander was killed.
This operation Entebbe had a military codename, Operation Thunderbolt.
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