W H AT Y O U N E E D T O K N O W A B O U T J E S U S
Two days later, two thousand miles away, the leaders of Israel sat in the woodpaneled Cabinet Room of the Israeli Knesset. Weary and anxious, they had to face still another threat to their people. In addition to the safety of the Jewish people aboard the flight, they had to consider another issue: if the terrorists got away with this, more acts of violence and terrorism would follow. No Israeli would be safe unless the terrorists could be stopped. Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister; Lt. Gen. Mordechai Gur, the military chief of staff; and all the cabinet members decided they should explore the possibility of negotiating a release without bloodshed. But at the same time, they would make an all-out effort to come up with a military option. They had no reason to believe the terrorists would negotiate honorably. Immediately, a strike force was assembled on a military base in the Israeli desert to begin planning the impossible: a raid on Entebbe to save the hostages. Staff members of El Al, the Israeli national airlines, gave information about possible flight routes, refueling opportunities, and communication facilities. Israel slipped secret agents into Uganda to analyze the situation. Information began pouring back. On June 30 and July 1, the terrorists released all non-Jewish passengers. This was good news, because fewer hostages increased the chances of success. Israeli intelligence learned that the hostages were being kept in the central open area of the small airport terminal building in the capital city, and that the airport was not wired with explosives. It was another good sign that the terrorists and the Ugandans hadn’t considered the possibility of a rescue attempt. The United States gave Israel satellite photographs of the airport, and Kenya gave secret assurances that an Israeli strike force would be allowed to land at Nairobi to refuel and, on the return trip, care for any wounded. The raiding party was selected and honed to a strike force specially trained in air-assault operations. They were among the finest military men in the world, led by thirty-year-old Col. Jonathan Netanyahu, who had moved to Israel from the United States when he was only two. Deep in the desert at the isolated military base, they practiced the raid again and again, shaving the ground rescue time down to fifty-five minutes. The airplanes chosen to take the strike team to Entebbe were four U.S.-built Hercules C-130 cargo planes and two Boeing 707 jets. One jet was an airborne command-and-communications center and the other was a hospital plane. The six planes followed El Al’s usual route to South Africa: down the Red Sea and over Ethiopia and Kenya. The hospital plane landed in Nairobi. The five military aircraft left the Nairobi landing pattern and redirected toward Entebbe. No suspicion was
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