Tomorrow will mark 25 years since the heroic IDF rescue of 100 Israelis being held hostage in Entebbe, Uganda, on the 6th day of Tammuz, 5736 (July 4, 1976). A memorial service will be held at Mt. Herzl Military Cemetery for Lt.-Col. Yoni Netanyahu, who commanded the mission and was killed in the process. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Effie Eitam participated in the historic mission as the commander of a Golani Brigade unit. He recounted to Arutz-7 today, \"Golani Commander Uri Saguy called me in the middle of an exercise in the Golan to tell me what we were about to do. Even he, an old battle horse, was very excited, saying we were about to embark on a mission about which I would be able to tell my grandchildren proudly. We drove to Tel Aviv, and started looking for Uganda in old atlases...\"
Haggai Segal: \"The mission [to save the hostages] was a pretty insane idea, no?\"
EE: \"It wasn\'t insane, but it was daring, based on a good combination of surprise and very detailed planning. It remains an almost classic model of these two elements, allowing us to produce results way beyond what would have been our normal capabilities...
\"Our group\'s mission, together with others, was to take over the old terminal where the hostages were and bring them to the plane. One of the most moving parts of the mission was not the actual military part, which was fairly straightforward, but the flight home on the same plane together with all the hostages. It happens very rarely that you actually see in immediate context the direct results of the great risks that the mission involved. To fly back with them was an amazing experience. I remember there was one woman who, throughout the seven-hour flight, kept on counting her family members to make sure they were all there… Very symbolically, the plane was divided in half by a thin curtain: on one side were the joyous former hostages, while on the other side was a make-shift hospital where doctors were trying, in vain, to save the life of the main commander of the operation, Yoni Netanyahu. He died separated only by that curtain from the people whose lives he had saved with his death…\"
Eitam concluded, \"I appeared on a TV program the other day with some self-proclaimed experts - possibly their only expertise was in how to arm the enemy - and they cynically asked me if I thought that Israel could possibly protect each and every isolated settlement. I told them that the trapped Jews in Entebbe were the most far-off and isolated settlement that could possibly be - a settlement 8,000 kilometers away, the sole purpose of which was to gather together and threaten Jews with the idea that they might really be defenseless. But the IDF proved that it is possible to protect a settlement even in Entebbe - if there is the desire, if there is the willingness to be daring, and if there is the proper understanding of what is the true destiny of the State of Israel.\"
Haggai Segal: \"The mission [to save the hostages] was a pretty insane idea, no?\"
EE: \"It wasn\'t insane, but it was daring, based on a good combination of surprise and very detailed planning. It remains an almost classic model of these two elements, allowing us to produce results way beyond what would have been our normal capabilities...
\"Our group\'s mission, together with others, was to take over the old terminal where the hostages were and bring them to the plane. One of the most moving parts of the mission was not the actual military part, which was fairly straightforward, but the flight home on the same plane together with all the hostages. It happens very rarely that you actually see in immediate context the direct results of the great risks that the mission involved. To fly back with them was an amazing experience. I remember there was one woman who, throughout the seven-hour flight, kept on counting her family members to make sure they were all there… Very symbolically, the plane was divided in half by a thin curtain: on one side were the joyous former hostages, while on the other side was a make-shift hospital where doctors were trying, in vain, to save the life of the main commander of the operation, Yoni Netanyahu. He died separated only by that curtain from the people whose lives he had saved with his death…\"
Eitam concluded, \"I appeared on a TV program the other day with some self-proclaimed experts - possibly their only expertise was in how to arm the enemy - and they cynically asked me if I thought that Israel could possibly protect each and every isolated settlement. I told them that the trapped Jews in Entebbe were the most far-off and isolated settlement that could possibly be - a settlement 8,000 kilometers away, the sole purpose of which was to gather together and threaten Jews with the idea that they might really be defenseless. But the IDF proved that it is possible to protect a settlement even in Entebbe - if there is the desire, if there is the willingness to be daring, and if there is the proper understanding of what is the true destiny of the State of Israel.\"