Operation thunderbolt

On 27th June 1976 a flight from Tel Aviv flew for Paris although this was not a direct flight it was going from Tel Aviv to Paris via Athens (capital city of Greece) but along with some passengers this flight also took 4 hijackers from Athens and when the plane flew to reach it's final destination then under 15 minutes this flight was hijacked by the hijackers with the help of guns and hand grenades.

Moreover on 27th June 1976 the security staff of the Athens was on strike , that was the reason that these hijackers were able to bring weapons along with them. These hijackers were not from the same organization , 2 of them were from Popular front for the liberation of Palestine-external operations(PFLP-EO) and the other two were from German revolutionary cells. These 2 organizations came together as to counter a common enemy Israel . PFLP-EO was fighting for Palestine against Israel and German revolutionary cells was against Israel as they were not happy with  the defense partnership between Israel and France. After hijacking this aircraft  the hijackers took the plane to Libya for refueling and from there they took the airplane to  Uganda which at that time was being headed by an autocratic, despotic dictator Idi Amin who not only welcomed the terrorists but also ordered the Ugandan troops to provide security to the terrorists. After the hijackers successfully landed in Uganda they raised some demands in front of  Israel. They asked to leave around 53 terrorists out of which 40 were their in the jails of Israel and the rest 13 were scattered all around the world in other jails but Israel was unwilling to negotiate as according to the policy of Israel  there cannot be any negotiation between terrorists and Israeli government . Therefore Israel decided to rescue their hostage by a direct military action but this military operation seemed almost impossible as doing a military action 4000kilometers from your motherland cannot be considered as an easy operation but the plan was decided ,it was decided that 100 IDF commandos (Israeli defense force)  would go to Uganda by a military carrier plane and they would rescue the hostages.

 On 30th June all the passengers of the Air France Airbus A300 were categorized into Jewish and non Jewish and all the non Jewish passengers were sent to Paris ,these passengers were helpful in providing information about the airport of Uganda were the hostages were kept to the IDF . On 4th July 1976 a military aircraft flew with 100 IDF commandos which were being headed by Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu who was the of brother Benjamin Netanyahu(current prime minister of Israel).The commandos came out from the same vehicles which Idi Amin used to carry during travelling as soon as the terrorists realized that it was IDF commandos and not Idi Amin they started firing on the commandos , in the cross firing all the 4 terrorists were killed and 45 Ugandan soldiers were also killed which were defending the terrorists and moreover MIG17 and MIG 21 of the Ugandan air force were also destroyed by the IDF . Out  of 106 hostages 103 were successfully rescued and 2 died in the cross firing and one was in the hospital and was later killed , 5 IDF commandos were wounded and Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu lost his life  during this operation. This is one the most toughest military actions ever done by any military ,this shows the stand of Israel against terrorism. A big salute to all those 100 soldiers of IDF .We all stand against terrorism we all stand with Israel we all stand with IDF.

HATIKVAH