Claude Moufflet woke at dawn. Beside him the Flirt’s former companion was still sleeping soundly, as were most of the other hostages in the main hall of the Old Terminal building. He decided to get some air and picked his way noiselessly between the bodies to where Wilfried Böse was guarding one of the large hall’s two external exits (the other had been barricaded).
Sensing Moufflet’s antagonism, Böse kept their conversation brief, nodding his permission for the Frenchman to go outside. It was a beautiful morning, crisp and cold, and Moufflet moved a little away from the enclosed grass area at the front of the building, enjoying his peaceful solitude. Eventually a second hostage sat down next to him: Colin Hardie, the fifty-five-year-old general manager of the Christchurch Star newspaper who was travelling with his wife Nula.
More comfortable covering stories than being part of them, Hardie had nevertheless coped admirably with his enforced incarceration and Moufflet appreciated his friendly demeanour and quiet stoicism. They chatted about many things: the fine weather (‘beautiful and fresh’); their living conditions in the terminal (‘quite rudimentary but, under the circumstances, more or less satisfactory’); their travelling companions (‘an unusual lot’); and the terrorists, their objectives, and the possible outcome of their adventure (on this last point they were undecided).
As they talked, Nola Hardie came out to join them. She wanted to check if the underwear she had washed the night before was dry; and when she found that it was not, she exclaimed: ‘It doesn’t look good at my age to be without pants or bra under my dress.’
The men laughed.
Yitzhak Rabin was drinking coffee in the apartment that served as his official residence in Tel Aviv when he received a call from his chief aide, Amos Eiran. ‘Prime Minister, I have bad news. The families of the hostages have broken through the gates at the Kirya, pushing aside the military police, and are waiting inside your office, demanding a meeting. Would you like me to speak to them?’
Rabin grunted. ‘That’s all we need. A sign to the world that we only agreed to negotiate because of pressure put on us by the families. But, yes, could you speak to them? Don’t promise them anything because, as you know, the final decision has to be made by the Cabinet. Just tell them that we’re doing everything we can to bring their loved ones back to them.’
‘I will, Prime Minister.’
‘Good. Now do you want to take some security people with you? Emotions are obviously running high and the meeting might turn violent.’
‘No, Prime Minister, that won’t be necessary,’ said Eiran. ‘It will probably just complicate the situation further.’
Fifteen minutes later, Eiran was regretting his decision to meet the families alone. He tried to explain the government’s position, but nobody was listening. Angry and afraid, they shouted him down. One man even tried to punch him. ‘We don’t want an explanation,’ cried one. ‘Just tell us that you’re accepting all the terrorists’ demands and will release everyone on the list. We just want our people back home, and not to arrive in boxes.’
Breakfast arrived at the Old Terminal building in a bus at 8 a.m. and was distributed by one of two service teams that had been formed of crew and passenger volunteers, with a second team assigned to lunch. Claude Moufflet was part of this first team and, assisted by his new friend Gilles, a steward and a French doctor, he took plates and cutlery next door to the Israelis. There were, he realized after a careful count, eighty-three people in the smaller hall.
It occurred to him then that he and the others left in the large hall–the former departure lounge–were refusing, probably unconsciously, to call the smaller hall the ‘Israeli room’. Instead they referred to it as the ‘other room’, and said things like ‘Are they being served?’ and ‘What’s happening over there?’ Their suspicion that the Israelis had been singled out for ‘special’ treatment only increased their embarrassment, as did the knowledge that the hostages themselves had provoked the separation by demanding more space.
As Moufflet and his service team were not allowed to take food through to the ‘other room’, three or four Israelis came through the communication door to collect it. They seemed to be in good spirits.
With just over six hours to go to the expiry of the ultimatum in Entebbe, the ministerial committee met shortly before 8 a.m. in Rabin’s office in the Kirya. Attending were the six ministers and their aides, as well as Gur, Adam and the chief of Military Intelligence, Shlomo Gazit.
Rabin spoke first. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said with a frown, ‘I have worrying news. The terrorists have carried out a selection. They have separated the Jews from the non-Jews. The non-Jews have been released. The Jewish hostages are threatened with execution. There is now absolutely no doubt that Idi Amin is eager to ingratiate himself with the Arabs and is fully cooperating with the terrorists. The ultimatum expires in just a few hours. So, again, I ask the chief of staff–Motta, do you have a military plan?’
‘We are looking at three possible options,’ said Gur. ‘One is to launch a seaborne attack on the airport from Lake Victoria; the second is take the assault force in on a civilian plane pretending to carry the freed terrorists; and the third is to drop parachutists over Entebbe.’ He made no mention of Shomron’s IDF Option because he had not yet been briefed about it.
After a pause, Rabin asked the crucial question: ‘Are any of these plans operational? Can you recommend any of them to the government?’
‘No.’
‘In that case, since the terrorist ultimatum is scheduled to run out at two p.m. today, I intend to propose to the full Cabinet that we negotiate with the hijackers for the release of the hostages. We will negotiate through the French. If we are unable to rescue them by force we have no moral right to abandon them. We must exchange them for terrorists held here in our jails in Israel. Our negotiations will be in earnest, not a tactical ruse to gain time. And we will keep our side of any deal we strike.’
‘I object,’ said Peres, horrified that such a crucial decision had already been taken.
‘I’m sure you do,’ muttered Rabin.
Peres continued: ‘We have never agreed in the past to free prisoners who have murdered innocent civilians. If we give in to the hijackers’ demands and release terrorists, everyone will understand us but no one will respect us. If, on the other hand, we conduct a military operation to free the hostages, it is possible that no one will understand us, but everyone will respect us, depending, of course,’ his voice dropped to a whisper, ‘on the outcome of the operation.’
‘For God’s sake, Shimon,’ responded Rabin angrily, his jaw set, ‘our problem at the moment is not more of your heroic rhetoric. If you have a better proposal, let’s hear it. What do you suggest? You know as well as I do that the relatives are stalking us day and night. They are beside themselves with fear, clamouring for us to make an exchange, and for good reason. What do they say? They say that Israel freed terrorists after the Yom Kippur War in exchange for the bodies of dead soldiers, so how can we refuse to free terrorists in exchange for living people, our own people, their loved ones, when their lives are in imminent danger?’
‘There is an alternative,’ said Peres. ‘Last night we got a lot of very useful information from the released hostages in Paris. I propose that we use this information to cooperate with France in a joint military operation.’
Rabin waved his hand dismissively. ‘If anyone wants to propose an operation of this kind, let him submit to the full vote of Cabinet. It’s madness. There simply isn’t enough time.’
‘I agree,’ said Allon. ‘Let’s concentrate on what’s possible.’
‘And not,’ added Rabin, looking pointedly at Peres, ‘on pie-in-the-sky dreams.’
Peres stood his ground. ‘If we surrender to the hijackers it will create a potentially disastrous precedent. It isn’t that I lack concern for the lives and safety of the hostages. On the contrary, I am concerned for the lives and safety of the passengers in the future.’
Rabin had heard enough. ‘Who is in favour of advising the Cabinet that we begin negotiations with the terrorists?’ He raised his hand, as did Allon, Yaacobi, Galili and Zadok. Reluctantly, Peres followed suit.
‘Wake up!’ shouted Jaber, shaking the prone Nahum Dahan roughly by the shoulder.
The hostage had been forced to write the report at the desk in the Israeli room for much of the night, and allowed to sleep by Brigitte Kuhlmann only as dawn was breaking. He had, as a result, missed breakfast and would have continued to doze if Jaber had let him. Opening his eyes he could see the chief terrorist clutching a photograph of him on a burned-out Syrian tank that he had forgotten was in his hand luggage. ‘I have the evidence here,’ yelled Jaber, waving the photo. ‘You are in the Israeli Army. You must be a spy.’
‘I’ve never been in the army,’ insisted Dahan in French. ‘Those photos are from a tour of the Golan Heights.’
‘I don’t believe you. Come with us.’
Knowing that he was about to be taken back to the interrogation room, Dahan refused to get up. So Jaber and one of the other terrorists grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him there. Placed in a chair, Dahan was confronted by Jaber and Abdur al-Samrai. The former snarled: ‘You work for the Israelis, don’t you? You’re a spy. Tell us the truth or you won’t live to regret it.’
When Dahan refused to answer, Jaber lost his temper and slammed his fist hard into the young Frenchman’s face, knocking him to the floor. There he was kicked and punched repeatedly by al-Samrai, as Jaber asked: ‘Do you want to live or die?’
After what seemed an eternity, the blows ceased and Jaber told Dahan that he would not leave the room until he had written in English a full account of his life in Paris before he emigrated to Israel. For an hour Dahan toiled in the little room, struggling to record his biography in a language he spoke but could not write. Eventually he was allowed a break to go to the toilet and en route appealed for help to both Ilan Hartuv in the Israeli room and Michel Bacos in the one beyond. ‘You must do something,’ Dahan implored. ‘They think I’m a spy and are going to shoot me.’
Bacos immediately consulted Lemoine, Cojot and one or two others. Cojot’s response was to ask if anyone really knew his nationality.
‘He has a French passport,’ responded Bacos, ‘but physically he is very marked.’
He was implying that Dahan was obviously Jewish in his facial characteristics and that was the reason the terrorists suspected him of being Israeli and a possible spy. But to Cojot, whose own family had suffered from such off-hand remarks, this was a hugely insensitive comment that reminded him once again of the two faces of France: light and dark. ‘I was crushed by that reply,’ he wrote. ‘It gave sustenance once again to a racial definition of nationality, thirty years after Vichy! The hostage in question would not have caused even a novice physiognomist to hesitate. But the sole objective of the members of this ephemeral and infamous profession of the Vichy era was to identify by facial features who was Jewish, not who was French. Besides, the man, like many Sephardim, was no less Arab in “type”.’
Bacos did, however, get permission from the terrorists to speak to Dahan in the little room. There he advised him to be more cooperative and to act less suspiciously. ‘Your attitude,’ said Bacos, ‘is not helping.’
The French pilot then approached the Peruvian to get assurances that Dahan would not suffer serious injury. ‘What would you like me to say?’ replied the moustached terrorist. ‘If he lies to us each time then he has something to hide.’
Meanwhile, Dahan’s inability to complete the task asked of him was punished by more beatings in the small room, his screams echoing round the Old Terminal. They stopped only when Jaber put a gun to his head. Convinced he was about to be killed, Dahan prayed silently to God. ‘If you plan to do something, do it quickly because I have no strength left.’
Tears poured down Dahan’s face as he waited for the end. It did not come. Jaber put down his gun and left the room.
Aware that Dahan was in mortal danger, Hartuv and other members of the informal Israeli committee–including Yitzhak David and Akiva Laxer–told the Peruvian that if he wasn’t returned to their room they would go on hunger strike. (Bacos had earlier made the same plea.) This time it had the desired effect–probably because the terrorists were worried that word of this would reach the press–and Dahan was released. ‘Go join the others,’ he was told.
Though not a religious man, Dahan put his rescue down to God and made a promise that if he returned to Israel he would regularly attend the synagogue. The beatings had left him with two cracked ribs and no appetite for food, and it was the ever-selfless Jean-Jacques Mimouni who eventually coaxed him out of this depression by bringing him bananas and pieces of pineapple.
Once the eighteen members of the Israeli Cabinet were seated round the conference table in the Prime Minister’s Office, Rabin explained the decision of the ministerial committee. ‘The IDF have not been able to come up with a military option in the short time still available to us,’ he said, looking grave. ‘Therefore our proposal is that we negotiate with the hijackers on their terms. Our reasoning is simple: we have no right to abandon the hostages. If we’re unable to rescue them by force, we must exchange them for terrorists held in our country. These negotiations are not meant as a tactical ruse to gain time. We will negotiate in earnest, and Israel will keep her side of any bargain. Any comments?’
‘Yes, Prime Minister,’ said Gad Yaacobi. ‘Last night around 11 p.m. I met with the passengers’ families. To their credit I must say their mood was very calm and responsible. Most of them claimed that due to special circumstances an Israeli military operation is impossible so the only thing they demand is to begin negotiations.’ This was a far from accurate summary of the meeting he and Amos Eiran had had with the families the night before–many of whom were far from calm–but Yaacobi was trying to strengthen Rabin’s point that negotiation was their only option.
Peres, however, did not agree. ‘The problem isn’t simply the families’ claims. It should be made clear that negotiations and surrendering will simply open the door to future terror attacks.’
‘Who says?’ asked Rabin.
‘I do.’
‘Then I ask you to clarify what you mean and tell us why.’
‘Until now,’ said Peres, ‘the Americans haven’t surrendered to terrorist blackmail because the Israelis were a world-class standard. If we surrender, there won’t be any country in the world that will stand up against it. It will simply lead to more and more incidents.’
Rabin could barely contain his fury. ‘Let me explain to you the situation as it stands. If we don’t make a decision, that in itself is a decision, including everything that comes with it, all the question marks.’
This was too much for Yigal Allon who, from the start, had felt uneasy about negotiations. ‘I am,’ he said, ‘against accepting the terror organization’s terms, and I know this is a strong statement because we truly are putting people’s lives at risk. These terrorists have shown before that in certain cases where the ultimatum was not heeded, they’ve carried out their threat.’
As with Peres’s comments, Rabin was convinced that Allon was playing politics by making sure that, if the negotiations did not work out, his opposition to them was on the record. So he cut him short. ‘I wish to be clear: we don’t have time for evasions. The question is: are we fundamentally willing to enter in to negotiations or not? Please don’t avoid answering this question.’
‘Since anyone,’ said Education Minister Aaron Yadlin, ‘who saves an Israeli life is actually saving the entire world, and because I’d like to preserve the lives of the innocent Israelis caught up in this situation, I support any effort to save them, including negotiations.’
Minister without Portfolio Yisrael Galili, Rabin’s right-hand man, agreed. ‘I suggest the government begin negotiations immediately in order to save the hostages, while showing a readiness to free detainees. We don’t need to elaborate which ones.’
‘I second Galili’s suggestion,’ said Rabin, ‘and for this reason: I’m not willing to explain to the public why in recent times we’ve traded 130 terrorists for corpses, including eight terrorists who were guilty of hostile destructive activity, including murder. I don’t wish to explain to the Israel public or anyone else why we can barter for corpses but not live people.’
Peres shook his head. ‘Precedents are not the problem. The problem is what happens in the future: the future of the Israeli people and the future of Israeli aeroplanes and aviation. We should be concerned with the fate of people here, of what will happen to this country and its status regarding hijacking, terror and so on, as well as the fate of those who have been taken hostage. Up till now, all of the terror organizations, apart from Wadie Haddad’s, have outlawed the hijacking of planes, and this is chiefly because of Israel’s strict and persistent stance.’
‘Nonsense,’ responded Rabin. ‘Fatah stopped hijacking as part of a broader political decision to cease their operations abroad. It had nothing to do with Israel’s strict stance.’
‘You think so?’ asked Peres sarcastically. ‘I can guarantee that if Israel had surrendered every time it was blackmailed, Fatah would have continued with all its terror operations at home and abroad.’
Rabin could see no profit in continuing the discussion. ‘I wish to know,’ he said, scanning the faces round the table, ‘whether anyone is opposed to Galili’s suggestion. I don’t want any misunderstandings on this issue. I propose that the government authorizes the ministerial team to continue our attempts to use all means to release the hostages, including the exchange of prisoners in Israel. We’ll say “prisoners”, but that doesn’t mean accepting the terrorists’ terms. We won’t specify how many we’ll release and what their names are. Those in favour of this offer, raise your hands.’
One by one the eighteen ministers raised their hands, even Peres and Allon.
‘It’s unanimous,’ said Rabin. ‘Thank you.’
‘Could I just add,’ said Peres, ‘that I would like it recorded in the minutes that I’ve only agreed to negotiate because I regard it as a tactical measure to gain time. I still think a military solution is possible.’
‘I feel the same,’ said Shlomo Hillel, the minister of police.
‘So be it. You should all clearly understand that the IDF will continue to seek a military option, but this in no way detracts from the earnestness of the decision we have just taken to negotiate. Now if there’s nothing else I must inform the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee about our momentous decision. Could you all wait here until I return with their response.’
Rabin then left the room and entered a neighbouring office where the members of the committee–chiefly composed of leaders of the main opposition parties–were waiting. ‘Gentlemen,’ said Rabin, ‘the Cabinet has just made the decision to open negotiations with the terrorists to exchange killers in our hands for the hostages.’
Many of the members started speaking at once, raising objections and concerns. ‘We simply have no choice,’ said Rabin, interrupting. ‘We have no credible military option. The terrorists’ ultimatum expires in a few hours’ time, at two o’clock.’
‘Mr Prime Minister,’ said Menachem Begin, the Likud leader, ‘may I request a brief interval for consultations with my colleagues?’
Rabin glanced at his watch. ‘Yes, but please be quick. Time is running out. We have yet to relay our position to the French.’
This time Begin left the room with a handful of his deputies. His voice could just be heard telling them he didn’t agree with negotiating with terrorists on principle, but that ‘Jewish lives were at stake’ and it was imperative to rescue them ‘from execution’. They would, therefore, share in the ‘public responsibility’ for the decision to open negotiations.
After a few minutes they returned. ‘Mr Prime Minister,’ said Begin, ‘this is not a partisan matter for debate between the coalition and the opposition. It is a national issue of the highest order. We, the opposition, shall support any decision the government adopts to save the lives of Jews. And we shall make our decision known to the public.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rabin, his eyes welling with tears. He personally regretted the decision to negotiate and Begin’s support had provided him with a ‘certain measure of relief’. Once Likud had made its position clear, the other members of the committee fell into line, though many of them had reservations.
When he returned to the Cabinet to report, Rabin noticed that Peres seemed taken aback by the opposition’s compliance. ‘It seems,’ he remarked sarcastically to members of his staff as he left the meeting, ‘Mr Begin’s display of national responsibility descended on Mr Peres like a cold shower, cooling off his demagoguery. And now I must quickly inform the French to proceed with negotiations.’
That afternoon, the New York Post ran the headline: ‘ISRAEL SURRENDERS!’
Unaware of the momentous decision that had been taken by the Israeli Cabinet 2,200 miles away in Tel Aviv, the hostages in the Old Terminal building were uneasily counting down the hours to the deadline.
One of them, however, was thinking of how he might bring the terrorists to justice by taking surreptitious photographs of them. Having arrived in the Old Terminal with a camera and a film hidden in his briefcase, Claude Moufflet had already taken four or five snaps of the main hall and two of the original hijackers, Wilfried Böse and Ali al-Ma’ati (wearing the red shirt and known to the hostages as either ‘Ali’ or ‘Number 39’). Now, with the assistance of Gilles, who was sitting on the bar to keep him hidden, he sneaked a picture of the other Palestinian hijacker with the moustache and the yellow shirt, Khaled al-Khalili.
Moufflet was well aware that if he was caught in the act it might cost him his life. Some hostages who saw him do it were more concerned for their own welfare and told him not to be so reckless.
By now there was a constant trickle of male Israelis passing the bar area where Moufflet was based on their way to the toilets. Several young sabras– native-born Israelis–stopped to chat and explained that the hijacking was not directed against France. ‘It is,’ said one, ‘between us and the Palestinians, and very soon you will be gone and it will be easy for our country to intervene. You have to understand that we are in a constant state of war.’ He was saying, in effect, that it would be simpler for Israel to launch a military strike if only Israeli hostages were still being held (and therefore at risk of dying if the rescue did not succeed). Moufflet could see the logic of this, though he was not entirely convinced that the IDF had the military capability to pull off such a long-distance operation. What was not in doubt, however, was that a significant proportion of the young Israeli hostages, particularly sabras, were opposed to negotiating with terrorists as a matter of principle (even if it did put their own lives at risk). The older Israelis–especially immigrants from countries like Poland, Romania, Russia and France–thought differently: many ‘missed their old passports’ and did not want the non-Israelis to leave because, as one told Moufflet, they saw their ‘presence as protectors’. They feared the consequences of a botched rescue attempt and, in any case, did not believe it would happen.
While Moufflet mulled over this latest example of the young coping better with the stresses and strains of the hijacking than their seniors, the young Israeli he was talking to was shooed back to his room by Khaled. There was movement outside and eventually a small truck drove up in front of the Old Terminal. Out of the front stepped a Ugandan civilian who came into the large hall accompanied by Böse. The German asked Cojot to make the following announcement: ‘The director of the airport has asked and obtained the Palestinians’ permission to provide you with another limited service of Duty Free. You can buy cigarettes, soap, razor blades, shaving cream, toothpaste, toothbrushes, biscuits and squash. The sale will be organized outside your room. Your purchases can be paid for in dollars, French francs, pounds sterling and deutsche marks. Can you combine your orders so that not everyone has to join the queue.’
The news was greeted with clapping, and a line of people quickly formed. With orders for fifteen others, Moufflet was behind the Yachtsman, who kept himself amused at the glacial pace of the queue by coming out with sarcastic comments like: ‘Oh, c’mon, go in front of me. I’ve got all the time in the world to kill.’
When he eventually reached the makeshift shop Moufflet was asked by Cojot, who had been verifying the transactions, to take over his role in the hope that he could speed things up so that the Israelis could also make a few purchases before lunch. The Duty Free service, said Cojot, would finish at 12.30 p.m. and not return for at least a week, a declaration which naturally ‘worried quite a few hostages’.
While the Israeli government was hoping to end the hostage crisis peacefully, Ehud Barak and his planning team continued their work in the Pit on the assumption that a rescue mission might, at some point, be needed. Their task, however, had been considerably simplified by the arrival that morning of the vital intelligence that Amiram Levine had extracted from the freed hostages in Paris: in particular the news that Amin was collaborating with the terrorists.
It was now obvious to all the planners that most of their schemes–parachuting into Lake Victoria, ships from Kenya and ‘fake identities as Palestinian terrorists aboard a plane painted to look like a civilian jet’–had ‘suddenly became irrelevant’. The only plan that now counted was one that ‘involved landing at the airport, freeing the hostages, and flying out’.
Dan Shomron and his staff had come up with just such a plan the night before, but it had been overtaken by events, and when Shomron repitched the improved version to Kuti Adam himself at 10 a.m. on 1 July it was deemed to be ‘too limited in scope’. What a rescue force now required was the use of a ‘large enough force to kill the terrorists, gain control of the airport and evacuate the hostages, with the troops returning to Israel’. That would require more airlifting power than two Hercules C-130 tankers and, moreover, meant that the planes had to be refuelled.
Coming to this conclusion, Muki Betser went to speak to Colonel Tamari. Having briefed the colonel on the new information from Paris, he suggested ‘dropping everything else’ and working only on a slimmed-down version of the IDF Option. Ran Bag’s original suggestion had been to use 1,000 men. Barak, Betser and the other ex-Unit planners thought that was too many, and that they could do the job with a much smaller, more heavily armed force.
Nodding his assent, Tamari pressed the button on the direct intercom to Kuti Adam. ‘Here’s what we have,’ he said, repeating the argument that the intelligence from Paris had reduced the options to an airlift rescue.
Adam was not entirely convinced. ‘I want a written brief on all four options,’ he said. ‘All four plans, including the failed naval one. I want a concise report on the advantages and disadvantages of each one.’
Tamari said he would have them and at once called in Barak and the rest of the planning team to draw up the briefs, ‘neatly and concisely’ listing all four options, ‘with their pluses and minuses in meticulously drawn columns’. When he had finished he nodded, rose from his seat and ‘announced he was off to see Kuti’.
A few minutes later he was back with Adam’s authorization for the IDF Option. At last the planners ‘could get down to details’.
Burka Bar-Lev waited patiently for the call to be put through to Uganda. It was the third time that Shimon Peres had asked him to speak to Idi Amin from the Ministry of Defense in the hope that he could delay the executions and give the IDF more time to come up with a military option. Peres’s desperate ploy was for him to tell Amin that he was ready to fly to Uganda at once with an important message from his government. But as soon as he heard the distant tone of Amin’s voice, Bar-Lev knew the tactic was hopeless.
‘Inform your government officially,’ said Amin bluntly, ‘that the People’s Front of Palestine will make an announcement at 11 a.m. GMT. That’s the only answer I can give you. Those are the instructions I received from the front. Okay? We had very difficult talks till now. It’s best that you wait for an announcement.’
Bar-Lev asked for details, but Amin would not be drawn. So the Israeli persisted with his original tactic. ‘Can you prevent them from doing anything before I arrive? I’m coming with some very interesting proposals.’
‘Call me after you hear the announcement.’
Changing tack, Bar-Lev asked Amin how it was that additional terrorists–as many as twenty according to some of the released hostages–had joined the original hijackers in Entebbe.
‘They were in the plane,’ lied Amin. ‘There weren’t only six, there were about thirty from all over the world. Nobody came by another plane to Uganda. For your information, I tried to put the hostages in a bus and drive them in a different direction, but the hijackers wanted all of them to be brought to the old air terminal. It’s very difficult for me, I did the best I could, but I think that your government is responsible for the fate of the Israelis and the passengers with dual nationality, and the rest of the hostages.’
Convinced that Amin was speaking under duress, and that Wadie Haddad might be listening in, Bar-Lev pleaded with him not to be ‘influenced by these PFLP just because they are sitting next to you and tell you all kinds of stories’.
‘I’m not influenced by the PFLP,’ said Amin, his voice shrill. ‘I make my own decisions, and I am doing everything I can to save the lives of Israelis and the other passengers. So what you said about wanting to come to Uganda, it isn’t necessary that you should come. If you have something extremely important to tell me, listen to the announcement, phone me, and I’ll tell you what to do. I want to tell you again that had I not done everything I could, all the hostages including the crew wouldn’t be alive now. You must consider my position, you mustn’t insult me as you did just now when you said that I am collaborating with the hijackers, who are not innocent people. But my position is extremely difficult, and you must realize it. The whole world must realize it.’
Realizing he had gone too far, Bar-Lev tried flattery, telling Amin that he was a ‘great soldier’ and that he alone could ‘prevent a massacre and bloodshed’. He added: ‘Nobody can give you instructions. The people of the PFLP have no right to do this within the territory of your country.’
‘They surrounded the hostages with high explosives,’ said Amin, explaining his helplessness, ‘and they moved my soldiers away. The lives of the hostages are in their hands. What can I do now?’
‘You can tell them that they are your guests and that they are placing your country in a difficult position. If such a thing were to happen in Israel, and it did happen, we managed to free the hostages,’ said Bar-Lev, referring to the Sabena hijack in 1972. ‘The front have never succeeded in doing what they want in Israel, even when they had high explosives, because we didn’t permit them to. The world will never accept the claim that you and your great army couldn’t overpower a small number of terrorists? How will the world believe that the PFLP can do what it likes in Uganda, and the entire Uganda Army cannot overpower them?’
‘I know that you are saying that they never succeeded in your country and that I can kill the terrorists.’
‘You are granting them protection. They are living in Uganda as if they were in a hotel. You are a good friend of the Palestinians and the Arabs, so they shouldn’t place you in a difficult situation and harm you.’ But, added Bar-Lev, ‘they won’t do anything if Field Marshal Dr Idi Amin asks them to do nothing and delay operations for a day until I can arrive.’
Amin denied the terrorists were living ‘like guests in a hotel’. They were, he insisted, ‘together with the hostages and if we take any action we are endangering the lives of the hostages’. Yet he would not deny he was their friend. ‘I want peace in Palestine. It is the responsibility of your government. You must not continue with this Zionist policy and activity.’
The line went dead, causing Bar-Lev to conclude that Amin was working with the terrorists and would not intervene militarily to save the hostages. His only crumb of comfort was a suspicion that Amin’s repeated references to ‘high explosives’ were probably a falsehood designed to discourage a rescue attempt. Not that it mattered any more. With the deadline imminent, and the government about to cave in to the terrorists’ demands, such an assumption was too little, too late.
With just over two hours to go to the deadline, and the tension rising among all the hostages, the Peruvian ran into the large hall of the Old Terminal building and, without bothering to grab a megaphone, shouted out: ‘I’ve some very important and urgent news to tell you. Before I do it’s important that you make a list of all the people in this room. Hurry up. Do it quickly. This is very important and really urgent.’
The room buzzed with speculation, most of it optimistic. ‘What type of news do you think this is?’ asked one hostage. ‘Good news or just important news? What do you think might happen?’
Before anyone could answer, Faiz Jaber began aggressively pushing those Israelis who were in the large hall towards their own room, telling Khaled who was guarding the entrance not to let them back in.
Meanwhile the interpreter Cojot had borrowed a pad of paper from Moufflet and was making his way round the room and adding each name to the list. But when he came to Bacos, Lom, Lemoine and the flight attendants, grouped near the bar, the Peruvian was adamant. ‘Not the crew!’ he yelled.
Close to finishing his task, Cojot was told to write each person’s nationality next to his name. The Peruvian then announced to the room: ‘Could you bring to the table near the door any cutlery, knives, cameras, electronic equipment, film, photos and tape recordings in your possession. You are going to be searched and if we find anything on you it will be very serious. Hurry up. It is very important and urgent. I am going to give you some good news.’
A few were hopeful that the terrorists were about to release another batch of hostages. But most discounted that possibility because they had not seen either Idi Amin or the press photographers. They thought the most likely scenario–given that Flight Engineer Lemoine had told them the hold doors were open–was that they were about to be reunited with their suitcases.
Their miscalculation was confirmed by the sudden arrival of a helicopter in front of the Old Terminal. Out of it climbed President Idi Amin, dapper in his freshly pressed combats, his four-year-old son Gamal Abdel Nasser Jwami in an identical outfit, and the president’s young and very beautiful fifth wife Sarah Kyolaba, wearing an African print dress. (A former go-go dancer in the jazz band of the army’s ‘Suicide’ Mechanized Unit–and hence known as ‘Suicide Sarah’–Kyolaba had married Amin after he arranged to have her boyfriend murdered.)
Flanked by soldiers, Amin and his entourage approached the front of the terminal where a cluster of pre-warned TV cameramen and press photographers were gathering. As flash bulbs went off, a smiling Amin entered the departure lounge with his wife and son. He was welcomed, as before, with a loud burst of applause from the non-Israeli hostages who regarded him, not without reason, as a potential saviour. He spoke in English while Michel Cojot provided an almost simultaneous translation into French.
‘Hello. Good morning. How are you getting on?’
Hardly pausing for a response, he continued: ‘I have some good news for you. Following some difficult negotiations that I have undertaken with the representatives of the PFLP, I can tell you that I have obtained the freedom of a hundred more people for today itself, and that negotiations continue for the freeing up of others.’ Spontaneous cheering broke out as the hostages realized that, with the Israelis unlikely to be included, most of those in the room would soon be on their way home.
‘A plane is coming here to take those people who have been released. At the same time, the PFLP has agreed to push back till Sunday 4 July, at 11 o’clock GMT, the limit date of its ultimatum, to allow different governments to intervene or to respond to the demands that have been made. I must tell you that, for those who stay, the negotiations are continuing, and all escape would be useless and dangerous because the whole of the building is booby-trapped with explosives and you could set them off. The list of people who are to be freed will be communicated to you shortly by a representative of the PFLP. Good luck.’
Loud applause followed Amin as he left with his family and went next door to speak to the Israelis. For them he had a different, less upbeat speech. Thus far, he told them, negotiations had failed ‘because of the obstinacy’ of the Israeli government. Yet he was continuing these discussions through the offices of his ‘good friend Colonel Bar-Lev’ and had, in addition, got the PFLP to agree to extend the deadline until 11 a.m. on Sunday.
What he did not mention was that this extension had been agreed with the terrorists because it suited Amin’s timetable. It gave him enough time to go to the island of Mauritius to attend the annual summit of the OAU where he was due to hand over his chairmanship to the local premier Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam on 2 July. His plan was to return to Uganda on Saturday 3 July in good time for the expiry of the new ultimatum the following day. He was convinced that the various governments–but particularly Rabin’s Israeli administration–would have agreed to all the terrorists’ demands by then and wanted to be present when that happened.
For the Israeli hostages, however, this was decidedly mixed news. Yes, it was a definite stay of execution. But, no, they would not be going home for a few more days at least, and possibly not even then. ‘There is an air of depression among the Israeli group,’ noted Moshe Peretz. ‘People are quiet and sad; they don’t talk much with one another–they’ve withdrawn within themselves. The children continue to play.’
As the clock ticked towards one in the afternoon–just one hour before the terrorists’ deadline and the time that Amin had told Bar-Lev an announcement would be made on Radio Uganda–Yehuda Avner and the other members of the prime minister’s personal staff were ‘gnawed by a supercharged tension’ that the government’s offer to negotiate would not be enough to satisfy the PFLP and save the lives of the hostages.
Only Rabin himself was immune. Discussing the day’s correspondence with a flustered Avner in his office, he seemed ‘unnaturally composed, as if morally fortified by the principled decision he had taken’. Even when the red emergency phone on his desk began to buzz, he showed no sign of panic. ‘Hello,’ he answered calmly.
As Avner watched with bated breath, Rabin nodded. ‘Yes I see,’ he said. ‘Good. Thank you. That gives us a little more time.’
Rabin had barely replaced the handset before Avner blurted out: ‘Any news?’
‘Yes.’ Without elaborating, he pressed the intercom button to speak to his military secretary. ‘Freuka, the French have just notified us that the terrorists have extended their ultimatum to 11 a.m. GMT on Sunday 4 July, to allow for negotiations to proceed. Please inform the members of the ministerial committee. I’ll speak directly to the defence minister and the chief of staff. Hopefully they will come up with a military plan before then.’
Claude Moufflet was comforting some of the stewardesses who had hoped to be among those released when the Peruvian, with an amended version of Cojot’s list in his hand, entered the large hall. ‘I want everyone to move to that side of the room,’ he said, pointing with his hand to the bar.
As the hostages began to comply, an Israeli on his way to the toilet asked Moufflet: ‘What’s going on? Are you going?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Only some. Idi Amin Dada has just announced that a hundred people will be freed. And in your room is it all the same?’
‘Yes. In our place nothing is happening. He hasn’t said anything to us about that. Who is leaving?’
‘We don’t know yet. They’re doing a list.’
As if on cue, the Peruvian started speaking again: ‘I’m going to read out a hundred names. If you hear your name, take your hand luggage and stand in line on the far side of the room where you’ll be searched before you’re allowed to get on the bus outside.’
He began calling out names but his pronunciation was so mangled that Cojot took over. It soon became clear that apart from the crew–who were being kept for the obvious reason that they might be needed to fly the plane if the negotiations succeeded–the ones selected to stay were, on the whole, the youngest. But there were exceptions. Of the first sixty-three chosen–the maximum for the yellow bus that would take them to the New Terminal building–the majority were French, but they also included the Kiwis Colin and Nola Hardie, the Britons Tony Russell and George Good, a number of Americans, including the Harvard research student Sanford Freedman and the well-known TV producer and writer Murray Schwartz, the young Anglo-French couple Gérard and Isabella Poignon (desperate to see their eighteen-month-old daughter left in France with Gérard’s mother), and four Canadians, including Louise Kourtis and Jo-Anne Rethmetakis, just twenty and eighteen years old respectively. As the young Canadians’ names were called, and they looked wide-eyed with surprise at Moufflet near the bar, he responded with a ‘V’ for Victory. Sanford Freedman had become friendly with the Rosenkovitches, now in the Israeli room, and before leaving he passed through to them his Complete Works of William Shakespeare and a small box of medicines.
With the queue of departees growing ever longer, Jaber ordered them not to talk to those who were staying. Cojot concluded that the terrorists were ‘very much afraid of crowd movements’ and wanted to proceed as quickly as possible ‘to reduce the duration of what promised to be a tense period’.
One by one this initial group was searched and then sent out to the bus, each departure from the room greeted with an explosion of flash bulbs from the press photographers. Once the bus was full it set off, and a new set of names was called.
There now seemed to be no obvious criteria for who stayed and who went. Of the two young French girls that Moufflet had shared a pair of seats with during the flight to Benghazi, only Maggy’s name was called, while Agnès her friend was overlooked (because, she suspected, her surname sounded Israeli). ‘There we go,’ Agnès said to herself, ‘it’s messed up for me. If Maggy goes I won’t last.’ She started to cry.
Maggy was just as upset. She wanted to go; but not without Agnès. Her dilemma was ‘horrific’, but still she rose from her mattress in tears and joined the queue.
Then nineteen-year-old Thierry Sicard, the friend of Jean-Jacques Mimouni and son of the French consul at Tel Aviv, was named, as were the two teenage Brazilian Orthodox Jews, Raphael Shammah and Jacques Stern. By now the excitement in the room was at ‘fever pitch’ as it became clear to Moufflet and the others still left that ‘very few of us will stay’. Yet there was little noise: people fidgeted, but the silence was ‘almost absolute’.
When the names of Nancy and Peter Rabinowitz were called, the Peruvian said a ‘mistake had been made’ and told them to stand alone in a corner. Eventually they were returned to the group staying behind which, by this time, was chiefly composed of the crew and younger French hostages, including Moufflet’s new friends Gilles and Willy; or, as Peter put it, ‘the healthy, the resilient and those who would not get sick and cause problems’ for the terrorists. Their hopes dashed, the Rabinowitzes were frantic. It seemed to them that there was ‘no rationale behind this nightmare’. One passenger tried to reassure them by saying that all Americans were going; another that he had seen the list with their names ‘checked and bracketed’. They could not decide if that was good news or bad. Their only consolation was that ‘a couple of new-found friends seemed to be remaining too’: any concern they might have felt for them was outweighed by the prospect of ‘having company’.
More names were called; more friends divided. Then Moufflet was surprised to hear his own name. He quickly went behind the bar to gather his things: briefcase, camera, calculator and Dictaphone. He left behind his remaining cigarettes and a half-finished bottle of ouzo. As he bade farewell to the group near the bar–many of whom were members of the crew–he felt ashamed. Why me? he asked himself. But they seemed genuinely happy for him, and smiled and waved when he joined the queue.
Cojot, meanwhile, was taking advantage of the haphazard nature of the selection to persuade the terrorists to release two doctors: American-born David Bass who, Cojot claimed, had a serious heart condition (it was minor); and a French doctor with a calling card that Cojot used to prove he lived in France.
All out of excuses, Cojot slumped to the ground exhausted. This prompted one of those left to approach Jaber in desperation. Falling to his knees in front of the terrorist, his hands clasped in supplication, he begged in Arabic: ‘Let me go. I have done nothing to you. I don’t know your histories. I have a wife and children, and I want to go home.’
‘Return to your place,’ responded Jaber dismissively. ‘We also have wives and children. They are killed every day in the bombing of Palestinian camps.’
The one name Cojot had not called out was his own, though it had a tick next to it. The terrorists were loath to lose such a facilitator and one of them joked: ‘You have been so useful that you have to stay.’
But Cojot was torn. When Lemoine asked him earlier if he was leaving, he had given a non-committal reply. He could not decide. Waiting for him back in France ‘was loneliness and the agony of divorce proceedings’. Here, on the other hand, he had ‘a role’ and some ‘small usefulness’. Nor was the threat to his life, in his opinion, very great. It seemed out of the question to him that either he or the crew ‘would be among the hostages to be shot’. To stay, moreover, would be to affirm his ‘solidarity’ and his ‘courage’, and to find what he had gone to seek a year earlier in Bolivia: Franco-Jewish glory.
Then, while working as a management consultant in Peru, he had read in a newspaper that ‘the Supreme Court of Bolivia had just denied the French government’s three-year-old request for the extradition of Klaus Altmann, or Barbie, the former Gestapo chief who had captured and tortured’ the French Resistance leader Jean Moulin and ‘who had held sway in Lyons’, the city from which his father ‘had never returned’. Thus he came up with the idea of killing Barbie to avenge both his father and all the other French victims of the Holocaust. ‘Then and only then,’ he wrote, ‘would I know peace. To live I had to kill.’
With the full consent of his Gentile wife, he procured recent pictures of Barbie from a photo agency in Paris, bought a five-shot revolver in Mexico, and travelled to La Paz in Bolivia where, impersonating a journalist, he spent a chilling couple of hours ‘interviewing’ the unrepentant Nazi. A few days later he was sitting on a bench with his gun hidden under a poncho when Barbie stopped three yards in front of him. All he needed to do was pull out the gun and shoot. But he could not. The words of the writer Elie Wiesel came back to him: ‘Every murder is a suicide.’
He knew then that Barbie’s killing would not be justice for his victims. ‘What does a quick death mean to a purveyor of slow death?’ Cojot asked himself. ‘What is death to a man who has worn the uniform with skull and crossbones?’ He decided it would be no punishment at all. Much better to leave Barbie in a permanent state of anxiety: always looking over his shoulder, hesitating before going out, mistrusting all strangers. As Cojot walked away, he told himself that he could have killed him if he had wanted to, but that he ‘intentionally decided not to do so’ for ‘powerful reasons’.
Staying at Entebbe would give him what he had sought and not found at La Paz: the admiration of both Jews and non-Jews, and a proper sense of belonging. It would reserve for him, as he put it, ‘a stool by the Righteous’. Yet he knew, deep down, that it would serve no purpose except for himself, for his own personal glory. There was, moreover, a more compelling reason for him to go: his conviction that he could persuade the French to launch a rescue mission from Djibouti, the ‘last French territory in Africa within easy reach, the distance from Paris to Madrid’.
If that was the solution to the crisis, he could provide the necessary details: ‘how many terrorists, with what weapons and at which guard posts; where best to enter to minimize the risk that stray bullets would hit the hostages’. Someone who would be able to prove that, contrary to what the hostages had been told, ‘the cases stored in the Israeli room did not contain explosives’. He had also observed the ‘functions, positions, equipment of the Ugandan soldiers’, and where those not on guard duty slept. As a reserve officer, he knew which people to talk to in France and would be able ‘to prove that the terrorists and their Ugandan accomplices, with their minds at rest because of the distance, did not prevent a very formidable obstacle’.
His mind made up, he retrieved a pen he had lent to a terrorist, said goodbye to the crew and, with a nod from the Peruvian, paid a last visit to the Israelis. Spotting Ilan Hartuv, he was assailed by feelings of guilt and was tempted to stay. But Hartuv dissuaded him. ‘No, you must go. You’re the only one who knows all the important details. You have to go to Paris, and you’ll probably be met in the airport; and if not take a taxi straight away to the Israeli Embassy and say what you know. It’s of the utmost importance.’ Hartuv thought, with good reason, that the Mossad would be keen to hear his story; Cojot had visions of involving French intelligence. But either way he had to leave.
Emma Rosenkovitch, who for a time after the hijacking had sat next to his son Olivier, saw Cojot’s eyes glistening and asked why he was crying.
‘Because,’ he replied, ‘it brings back memories.’
Returning to the main hall, Cojot found one of the stewardesses weeping quietly because she had to stay when others were leaving. The crew had earlier discussed their response if they were told they had the chance to go and, despite one or two gainsayers, they ‘prepared the reply one might expect’: in other words, they would stay until all the passengers had been released. But it never came to this because, according to Cojot, the terrorists did not give them the option: they were ‘needed to operate the Airbus’, or at least the pilots and the chief engineer were. So the crew ‘remained with almost all the Israelis, as did several others, French or not, Jewish or not’.
Cojot joined the queue of those about to depart at about the same time that Moufflet was having his briefcase searched by Jaber. After reading some of the papers it contained, the chief terrorist asked: ‘Are you an Iranian?’
‘No, why?’
‘Because in your things all these papers are concerning Iran. There’s nothing except Iran. Why?’
‘We have a business in Teheran and I have just been there to visit it.’
Unconvinced by this explanation, Jaber called the Peruvian over and said bluntly: ‘He’s Iranian.’
‘Are you Iranian?’ asked Jaber’s deputy.
‘No. I’m French.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Moufflet.’
Verifying the Frenchman’s name on his list, he asked: ‘Why does he say you’re an Iranian?’
‘Because he’s looked in my case and he’s seen some files of our business in Teheran. It’s from there that I’ve come.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Go forward.’
The Peruvian turned to Jaber and said: ‘It’s okay.’
Moufflet made his way out to the bus and was joined there by Cojot and a red-eyed Gilles whose name had not been on the amended list. But earlier, while waiting in the queue, Moufflet had gestured to both Gilles and Willy–his companions of the last few days–to try and join him. Willy had obstinately remained on his mattress. But eventually Gilles had got up and presented his Athens–Paris ticket to Jaber, asking: ‘How are you calling people?’
‘What’s your name?’ demanded the Palestinian.
‘Collini.’
‘Are you French?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is this your ticket?’
‘Yes.’
Jaber looked at the name on the ticket and back at Gilles. ‘Go!’
The Peruvian came out of the building to count the people on the bus: there were twenty-seven, which left space for ten more. He returned to the main hall and immediately sent out five people: Dr David Bass, the Rabinowitzes and their friends. The latter four owed their place on the bus to Michel Bacos, the pilot, who assured the Peruvian that they were all Americans who had boarded in Athens and not Tel Aviv. Even then the terrorist was suspicious. ‘What were they doing there?’ he asked.
Nancy explained that she studied Greek literature.
‘Rabinowitz?’ persisted the Peruvian. ‘That’s not an American name; what kind of a name is that?’
Only after Peter had explained it was Polish in origin were they allowed to leave.
All this time the two young Brazilians, Stern and Shammah, as well as Maggy and Thierry Sicard, had been told to wait just outside the door. Now the Peruvian gestured for the Brazilians to leave and they boarded the bus. Maggy was in tears as she and Sicard were pushed back inside the door and an American-born woman and her Greek husband, Phyllis and Constantin Teodoropolous, were sent out. Now just one place was left and Maggy, seemingly resigned to her fate, collapsed in a chair, her face in her hands. Sicard, on the other hand, kept arguing with the Peruvian, and received a sharp push in the chest for his pains. But back he came to remonstrate and, finally realizing there was room for one more, the Peruvian grabbed him by the arms and frogmarched him out to the bus.
As the engine started, Moufflet and some of the others made signs of encouragement to the ten mostly young hostages and twelve members of the crew–not to mention the eighty-three people in the Israeli room–they were leaving behind. But, for Moufflet at least, the relief of knowing he was nearly free did not compensate for the pain he felt at abandoning the others.
Yehuda Avner was chatting with Freuka Poran in the latter’s office in the Kirya, awaiting the outcome of the prime minister’s meeting with Peres and Gur, when in stormed a red-faced Rabin.
‘You won’t believe it,’ he roared. ‘Here I am, waiting for the defense minister and the chief of staff to come up with a military plan to beat the new deadline, and there they are backing the most outlandish proposal I’ve ever heard in my life. They want me to send Moshe Dayan–MOSHE DAYAN OF ALL PEOPLE– to Uganda to talk to Idi Amin! They have to be out of their minds, to suggest that we hand over one of our best-known public figures to that crazy tyrant so that he can hand him over to the terrorists as their prize hostage. It’s outrageous!’
‘But I hear,’ said Poran, trying to calm him down, ‘a military plan is beginning to take shape.’
Rabin was not convinced. ‘I’ve heard that too. But I’ll believe it when I see it. Motta and Peres say they might have something to show me in the morning.’
Peres’s scheme to send Moshe Dayan to Entebbe had been born out of Amin’s repeated comments to Bar-Lev, during their first two conversations, that the former IDF chief and defense secretary was a close friend. Peres did not imagine for a minute that Dayan would be able to secure the hostages’ release; but believed rather that his presence would convince the terrorists that Israel was taking the negotiations seriously. This, in turn, would give the IDF the time it needed ‘to perfect and execute a military rescue plan’. For Peres, therefore, the Dayan scheme was a means to an end.
Rabin had far less conviction that a rescue was possible–even with the extra three days’ grace the terrorists had allowed–and so he scotched the scheme on the grounds that Dayan’s probable incarceration would have, in his words, further strengthened ‘the blackmailers’ hand’ and left the Israeli government ‘absolutely no room for manoeuvre’.
Peres, however, was far from chastened by this rebuke as he urged Gur and his subordinates to use the extra time available to come up with a viable military plan. Their priorities, now, were first ‘to procure more and better intelligence information’, and second, ‘to establish a safe stopover point in case a rescue operation ran into difficulties’.
As Cojot, Moufflet and the other thirty-five released hostages stepped down from the yellow bus in front of the New Terminal building they were met by Hashi Abdallah Farah and Pierre Renard, the Somali and French ambassadors to Uganda respectively. Also present was acting British High Commissioner James Horrocks.
‘I’m very pleased that you’ve been freed,’ said the Somali. ‘I hope that the conditions you’ve been kept in weren’t too painful. We are continuing negotiations with a view to obtaining the liberation of your friends. I will give you now to the care of your ambassador. I wish you good luck and I will say the only two words in French I know. Bon voyage.’
Renard shook his hand warmly. ‘Thank you, Mr Ambassador. Thank you for your irreplaceable help in the negotiations and for all the efforts in obtaining the freedom of these people.’ He then turned to the hostages and added: ‘I am very pleased to see you. You are about to rejoin in the terminal those who were released before you and then you can rest. I must leave now because I must try and sort out the release of the others. An Air France plane will get here shortly to take you to Paris. Have a good journey.’
The two ambassadors departed in separate cars, while James Horrocks accompanied the former hostages into the New Terminal where they found their sixty-three comrades eating the now familiar meal of meat stew and rice. Some had already ‘regained their tourist reflexes’ and were complaining that the food was too cold. Others thought this basic fare had never tasted better.
Moufflet did not have the stomach to eat and thought it strange that many of the others, having eaten, were keen to buy mementoes from the souvenir shop like mounted gazelle horns, sculpted wood statues and amulets. Asked why he was not buying anything, he replied brusquely: ‘I don’t really need anything as a souvenir for this particular trip.’
This embarrassed the questioner who responded: ‘Oh, me neither. But you understand it’s just for the kids and it’s not really anything.’
Horrocks, meanwhile, had been speaking to a number of the former hostages–including the Britons Tony Russell and George Good–about their ordeal. ‘They seemed to be in remarkably good shape… given the circumstances,’ he reported back to London. Moreover they confirmed earlier reports that ‘3 or 4 armed Palestinians had not been passengers but had joined the hijackers after the arrival of the aircraft at Entebbe’ and that this, ‘together with the easy relationship observed between the Ugandan authorities and the hijackers, led them to suspect Ugandan collusion’. Horrocks, however, was ‘not fully convinced on this point’.
‘You’re moving!’ announced Wilfried Böse to the Israeli hostages near the door of the small hall in the Old Terminal building.
‘Where to?’ asked one, hopeful that they too might be released.
‘Next door. There’s more room since the others left.’
Reunited in the large hall with the crew and the ten mostly young French hostages, the Israelis felt only relief that their separation was over. They found many of the non-Israelis, however, in a deep depression. One or two were still crying, including the young Frenchman Willy who–since the departure of his colleague Gilles and Claude Moufflet–was alone.
Among the new arrivals was a pretty Israeli teacher who on the plane had argued bitterly with Willy about Middle East politics. Recognizing him, she came over. ‘You’re here!’ she said. ‘Why have you not gone with the others?’
‘Why would I leave,’ he replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘when you’re still here?’
With enough mattresses and chairs for everyone, the room felt much less cramped than it had been before. But this marginal improvement was offset by the fact that many hostages had diarrhoea, probably caused by eating bad or poorly cooked meat, and some of the overworked toilets were blocked and smelling horribly. There was, in addition, a nagging fear for the older Israelis and those with children especially that, the extension of the deadline notwithstanding, the Israeli government would never agree to exchange convicted killers for their lives. And if that was so, what hope was there for them and their children?
The arrival of lunch in the little yellow bus gave the hostages the excuse to keep busy ‘and think of other things’. It was the same menu–meat stew, rice and bananas–but oddly, given their reduced numbers, in smaller portions than before. Once again the crew organized the distribution of the food, assisted by several passengers.
There were now just two armed terrorists–Böse and Khaled–on guard. They seemed more relaxed than before and did not even bother to block up or guard the gap through to the Israelis’ old room, now occupied by the Palestinians. Their only stricture was to ask the hostages to keep their mattresses at least two yards from the windows at the front of the room so that a walkway was left free for them to patrol. This demand was only partially complied with.
Outside, Ugandan soldiers continued to stand guard at a distance of about fifteen yards from the front of the building. Their sullen demeanour had not changed.
Armed with Adam’s authorization, Barak and his planners spent much of Thursday morning and early afternoon fleshing out the IDF Option in the war room of the Pit, the warren of underground offices that served as the nerve centre of the Israeli military. The walls were covered with old aerial photos of Entebbe Airport, up-to-date civilian flight paths for East Africa, architectural drawings of the Old Terminal, courtesy of Solel Boneh, and summaries of the intelligence sent from Paris.
Every hour, on the hour, the planners paused to listen to the latest radio news bulletins: the violent demonstrations by the distraught relatives of the hostages; the government’s decision to negotiate; and lastly the terrorists’ decision to extend the deadline, which they cheered because they knew it at least made a military strike possible. And yet not once did anyone in the media even raise the possibility of a rescue: they simply assumed that the distance was too great.
The planners knew better and worked hard to turn a theoretical idea into a feasible operation that both Gur and Rabin were prepared to authorize. Their chief task was to work ‘on the compromise between a discreet airlift that could land unobtrusively, and the need for the firepower necessary to take the airport from the Ugandan army’.
While Ido Embar calculated fuel and cargo loads for the Hercules transports, Muki Betser concentrated on the assault force from the Unit that would travel in the first plane and tackle the terrorists: ‘the landing, the ride to the terminal, the break-in, the elimination of the terrorists, freeing of the hostages and holding the building against Ugandan opposition until the arrival of troops from the second plane’. His task was made considerably easier by the intelligence from Paris which showed that the hostages were all lying down by midnight, and most were sleeping by 1 a.m. That hour gave Betser ‘a cornerstone’ for his timetable.
By mid-afternoon the planners had narrowed the mission down to five Hercules (four for the mission and one in reserve)–the maximum number of crews trained for a night landing in an unfamiliar airport–‘with each plane loaded far past its recommended capacity’. The break-in crews would land in the first plane, ‘take out the terrorists, neutralize any interfering Ugandan troops and hold the old terminal’ until the second Hercules landed seven minutes later with reinforcements, including two Soviet-made armoured personnel carriers known as BTRs that had been captured during the Yom Kippur War. These BTRs were lighter than the IDF’s standard APC and ‘carried plenty of firepower to protect a perimeter around the old terminal building’.
The third and fourth planes would land straight after the second one, and bring in more reinforcements, two more BTRs and medical officers and equipment that could treat up to seventy-five casualties, which was 25 per cent of the total number of hostages and soldiers. That, of course, was a worst-case scenario. They hoped the wounded would not be anything like as numerous.
Though the break-in and rescue would take just seven minutes, the planes needed at least an hour on the ground to refuel from the airport’s underground tanks using mobile hand-operated pumps they would take with them. The alternative was to fly on to Nairobi and refuel there, but confirmation that that was possible had yet to be received from the Kenyans: not least because the Mossad was wary of giving them advance warning of a possible operation in case there was a security leak.
At 4 p.m. Brigadier-General Dan Shomron arrived in the Pit with authorization from Adam to take control of the planning: he was ‘to determine the method of the operation, the quality of the troops and the number of the planes’. A tall, impressive man with blue eyes and a shock of thick curly black hair, Shomron had been born on Kibbutz Ashdot Yaakov in the Jordan Valley and, despite his high rank, still retained the humility and quiet confidence of a typical kibbutzim. He preferred simple cooking–eggs, meat and fresh vegetables–to haute cuisine; slacks and a shirt to a suit and tie. His combat record, moreover, was second to none: he had fought as a paratrooper in the Sinai campaign of 1956, he was the first airborne soldier to reach the Suez Canal in 1967 (a feat for which he was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service), and in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 he commanded an armoured brigade that knocked out no fewer than sixty Egyptian tanks. A year later, at the age of just thirty-seven, he was promoted to brigadier-general and given the prestigious Infantry and Paratroops Command. As that was the formation that would supply the bulk of the soldiers needed for the Entebbe operation, it made sense for Shomron to take the plans to the next stage. His own preference, now, was to return to his deputy Ran Bag’s initial suggestion of a huge airlift of at least a thousand men. It would require, he told Barak and his planners, at least ten planes.
‘Dan,’ responded an exasperated Betser, ‘I think there’s a misunderstanding here. You’re making it sound as if we are going to start planning. We’re almost done with planning. We don’t need hundreds of soldiers. Let us brief you on the essentials of the plan, give you an idea of what we have. Then you can make up your mind.’
Amnon Biran spoke first, summarizing the intelligence available, and was followed by Ido Embar giving details of the flight and arrival (‘We can land the first plane without the Ugandans noticing’), and finally by Betser explaining the assault. ‘If we can reach the terminal in secret,’ he said, picking up where Embar had left off, ‘we can succeed.’
Shomron tilted his head, as if waiting to hear exactly how they would manage that. ‘The break-in force from the Unit,’ continued Betser, ‘will land in the first plane. It’s a mile from the New Terminal building to the old one. We’re going to drive.’
Shomron raised an eyebrow. ‘I know the Ugandan soldiers,’ said Betser by way of explanation, ‘I trained them. We don’t need hundreds of soldiers. Instead we use a Mercedes. Every battalion commander rides around in one. A soldier spots a Mercedes, he snaps to a salute. They’ll see us in the Mercedes with a couple of Land Rovers carrying soldiers, and they’ll assume a general’s about to drive by. They aren’t going to shoot us.’ Betser paused, smiling. ‘You know, it’s possible I’ll run into one of the soldiers I trained.’
‘It’s lucky you trained them for only four months and not four years,’ responded a wit from the back of the room.
Everyone laughed, breaking the tension. But Betser had a serious point to make. ‘While we’re driving to the target, we’ll probably see Ugandan troops, and they’ll probably see us. We can ignore them. Indeed, for the plan to work, we must ignore them, to avoid alerting the terrorists to our arrival. That’s what makes a hostage situation so unique. Our first concern must be eliminating the terrorists–or they’ll start harming the hostages. We’re not going all that way to fight Ugandans. We’re going down there to eliminate the terrorist threat to the hostages.’
After a brief pause, he continued. ‘So even if a Ugandan soldier sees through our disguise, and starts shooting, we should speed on to the terminal, to the break-in. Only then should the back-up force deal with the Ugandans, while the break-in crews do their job. So, to sum up. Five minutes for us to drive across the airfield to the Old Terminal. Two minutes for the break-in. Seven minutes after we landed, the second and third planes come in carrying reinforcements. In an hour we’re all on our way home,’ said Betser optimistically, forgetting the extra time it would take to refuel in Uganda or elsewhere.
As Shomron nodded approvingly, a message arrived from Adam. He wanted to be briefed on the plan so that he could take it to Gur and Peres. ‘Ivan,’ said Shomron to Colonel Oren, ‘grab the maps. Let’s go.’
Maggy was undressing for a shower, and doing her best to block out the stench from the nearby toilets, when she heard happy cries and a round of applause from the large hall. Hurriedly putting her clothes back on, she ran into the room to hear one of the terrorists yelling triumphantly: ‘Israel has surrendered! Israel has surrendered!’
A minute or two earlier, some of the hostages at the front of the hall had seen Pierre Renard, the French ambassador, waving frantically from behind the line of Ugandan sentries in front of the building, the nearest he was allowed to approach the hostages. ‘Israel is willing to negotiate!’ he shouted. ‘Israel is willing to negotiate!’
As word spread, people leapt up from mattresses and armchairs to dance jigs and hug and kiss each other. Some cried, others laughed. A few even embraced the hijackers ‘as if they were their good friends’. The Belgian Gilbert Weill put this down to Stockholm Syndrome.
Elated by the news, Maggy was grinning from ear to ear. It was as if, noted Moshe Peretz, they had been ‘born anew’. Many of the younger Israelis, however, were fearful of the precedent that Rabin was setting. ‘I’m happy that I’m about to be released,’ one of them told Michel Bacos, ‘but I’m certainly not happy that my government is giving in…’ Others were horrified by the decision, with one nineteen-year-old Israeli expressing his vehement disapproval.
Talking among themselves, Maggy and Agnès began to doubt the veracity of the report. They found it curious that Idi Amin had not made the announcement in person, and doubted that Israel was prepared to release such notorious prisoners as Archbishop Capucci and Kōzō Okamoto. Yet in general the mood in the hall was festive, and to celebrate many of the Israelis suddenly removed from their hand luggage the cakes and pastries they had planned to take to France. Would the bus come for them straight away? some wondered. Or would it arrive in an hour or two? So as not to be caught out, a few started packing, anticipating the exchange of prisoners. Gilbert Weill even began making plans for when he reached France: instead of continuing on to Antwerp, he would celebrate Shabbos in Paris and give himself and his wife ‘a day or two to recover’.
This time, on hearing the news that the Israeli government was prepared to negotiate with the terrorists, Henry Kissinger called Ambassador Simcha Dinitz from the State Department in Washington.
‘I am rather astonished by their decision,’ said Kissinger.
‘We had no doubt,’ said Dinitz, defensively, ‘they were going to slaughter them. That would have created in Israel a tremendous national feeling. The pressure was up so the government decided it would negotiate the release.’
It was an argument that did not cut any ice with Kissinger. ‘You are going to have Israelis picked up all over the world now.’
Dinitz seemed to agree. ‘I have suggested to the Prime Minister—’
‘This is,’ said Kissinger interrupting, ‘not an official thing.’
‘I understand. We are speaking as friends. When this is over, we should take the PLO and finish it off in a very devastating way. That was my own suggestion. With the situation that exists maybe it could be done, because we cannot leave it like this. It would have been better not to surrender at all,’ said Dinitz, referring to Entebbe, ‘but if it was impossible…’
‘How would you finish them off,’ asked Kissinger, ‘without going into Lebanon?’
Dinitz said he had only been a sergeant in the army, and would leave that to the experts. As for Entebbe, there was ‘no possibility’ of a military operation. He added: ‘I was astonished too. We have information that Amin is participating with the kidnappers in the technical operation. Some Ugandan soldiers are joining the kidnappers in guarding the hostages.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me.’
‘One American,’ said Dinitz, referring to the released hostage Carole Anne Taylor, ‘said some people joined the kidnappers in Uganda.’
After a brief interlude discussing the financing of arms shipments to Israel, they returned to the Entebbe crisis. ‘I am sorry for this mess. If it was a leap year,’ said Dinitz, unaware that it was, ‘maybe we could reach Uganda. But not this year. He would have slaughtered them: men, women and children.’
‘I wonder,’ replied Kissinger, ‘if that would not have been better. Then you could react.’
‘Politically I’m sure you’re right. But humanly and emotionally? Here we have the human element. If you look at the past, it is not like the radio reports. We have given up prisoners in the past. Algeria. It is only when we have some command over the situation that we can be useful and use force. I appreciate you calling.’
‘I am worried what will happen now.’
‘I just hope my suggestion will be accepted,’ said Dinitz, ‘because I think it should be not be allowed to go unchallenged. That is the danger, the way I see it.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Kissinger.
Two planes landed on the new runway at Entebbe in quick succession: a Tupolev of the Soviet airline Aeroflot; followed by an Air France Boeing 747 ‘Jumbo’, the plane sent to bring the released hostages back to Paris by direct flight. Like the jetliner that had flown home the previous batch of hostages, the Jumbo had been on standby at Nairobi International Airport in neighbouring Kenya. It would now cross with a third plane sent by Air France to Nairobi to wait for news of a third (and hopefully final) liberation.
The Jumbo came to a halt in front of the New Terminal building, its name clearly visible on its nose: ‘Château de la Roche-Guyon’. Few, if any, appreciated the irony of their rescue from German (and Palestinian) terrorists in a plane named after the famous twelfth-century French château that had served as German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s French headquarters in the later stages of the Second World War. They were just relieved that their departure from Ugandan soil was now a reality, and an excited chatter spread through the group.
Told that women would board first, Moufflet, Cojot and the other men waited patiently in their seats. But as the minutes ticked by, they wondered about the hold-up until a male hostage told them: ‘They’re searching everyone and it’s me that asked them to do it. I don’t have any confidence in some of our fellow travellers. You know they’ve freed Arabs who are going to be on this journey with us?’
Moufflet shook his head, astonished that after their shared experience such prejudices persisted. But the man he was speaking to was not the only one to doubt his fellow travellers. According to acting British High Commissioner James Horrocks, ‘certain New Zealand and American hostages suspected that at least four terrorists were posing as ordinary passengers’, and did not want to continue their journey with them. When he heard this, Horrocks spoke to the Air France manager ‘who instituted rigorous security checks (body and baggage searches) before the released hostages embarked’.
These same American former hostages would later tell US Embassy officials in Paris that they thought two of the Arab passengers were ‘working with the hijackers, at least after the event’, and one in particular ‘seemed to be the hijackers’ spy’ and ‘might have helped the hijackers get their arms and explosives on board’; an American also suspected a Canadian woman of smuggling weapons ‘in her heavy handbag’ and passing them to the German hijackers ‘when she went to the ladies’ room on the weak excuse of wishing to freshen up her makeup’. No corroborative evidence was provided and the charges were almost certainly baseless.
Once the careful search of their hand baggage and persons by Ugandan customs officials was completed–just in case, thought Cojot sardonically, ‘one of us had concealed a weapon with which to hijack the special return plane’–the hundred former detainees were led out one by one to the waiting Air France Jumbo. The French crew was ‘really kind’ and immediately offered drinks. Among them, disguised as a steward and stewardess, was a doctor and nurse to tend to the sick. An undisguised medical team had been sent with the earlier rescue plane and, at the terrorists’ insistence, forced to disembark at Nairobi. This time Air France was taking no chances.
The freed hostages were told by the plane’s captain over the intercom that everything had been done to keep their families’ informed of developments and that they knew the time of their arrival at Orly in the early hours of Friday morning. They would take off as soon as they had clearance from the control tower.
While the planners continued working on a rescue mission, Shimon Peres was doing his best to convince the ministerial committee, meeting in Rabin’s office for the second time that day, that negotiation was not the only option. ‘We must ask ourselves,’ Peres told his fellow ministers, ‘whether we are willing to release all the terrorists they’ve asked for, without any exceptions.’
Rabin frowned. ‘What does that have to do with a rescue mission?’
‘It has a lot to do with it,’ said the defense minister, ‘because if we aren’t prepared to release the ones with blood on their hands–like Okamoto–then we’re going to have to explain to the hostages’ families and the Israeli public why we’re willing to see the hostages die for X prisoner but not for Y.’
Rabin narrowed his eyes. ‘That is nonsense. If I thought we had a chance to rescue them, I would support it regardless of the price we might pay.’
‘Then we both agree a military operation is preferable. But I have to confess that, as of now, there is no concrete proposal, only ideas and imagination. But we must all accept that the alternative–to release prisoners–is complete and utter surrender. If we want to negotiate, we should at least send someone to Kampala to do it face to face, and not rely on the French.’
Shomron strode ahead, followed by Barak, Embar, Biran, Oren and Betser. Kuti Adam and Peled were waiting for them in the corridor outside the former’s office in the Kirya. It was 6 p.m. ‘Can you present the plan in a minute?’ asked Adam.
‘Sure,’ said Shomron.
‘Good. Motta’s waiting for us with the defense minister.’
As they reached Peres’s office, Betser decided it was time to call the Unit’s commander Yoni Netanyahu. He had promised he would let him know when an operation was imminent; now was that time. While the others filed in to Peres’s office, Betser looked for a phone to call Netanyahu in the Sinai.
‘Grab your kit and get over to the airfield,’ he told him when the call was finally connected.
‘It’s hot?’ asked Netanyahu.
‘It’s hot.’
Betser hung up to see a beaming Shomron emerge from Peres’s office. ‘The plan has been approved in principle,’ he told Betser, ‘and I’ve been appointed the ground commander. Of course the full Cabinet will have to give final approval, but until then we’re full steam ahead. We’ll meet tonight at eight at the Paratroops House at Ramat Gan to begin work on a detailed plan. We have to organize a force and train it, and stage a full dry run, in total secrecy. Once there the troops won’t leave until the operation.’
Betser immediately redialled Netanyahu to inform him of the new planning session at Ramat Gan. He then spoke to Embar and Biran, and asked them what he had missed in Peres’s office. ‘Dan was one hundred per cent,’ said Embar. ‘He presented the plan as if he planned it himself.’
‘What did Peres say?’
‘As soon as Dan finished, Peres asked everyone what we thought. So Dan added something. “If we can reach the terminal in secret, we can succeed.” Exactly what you told him.’
‘Any dissenters?’
‘Only Gur. He thinks it’s a charlatan plan and said he would only give his final permission if three necessary conditions were satisfied: choosing a secure flight route; gathering more intelligence about what was happening on the ground; and finding out whether the Hercules planes could land at night without runway lights. He said the plan sounded like the James Bond film Goldfinger and that if we did it without proper intelligence it would lead to another Bay of Pigs.’
Now that he had Peres’s authorization, Shomron asked the staff of the IDF’s Computer Centre for a random codename for the operation. The first name the computer came up with was ‘Wave of Ash’. Declaring it ‘unsuitable’ for such a mission, he asked for another. This time the computer randomly suggested ‘Thunderbolt’ and Shomron was delighted. The name perfectly encapsulated what they were trying to do–arrive in Uganda like a thunderbolt from the blue–and was surely, thought Shomron, a good omen.
After a nerve-wracking wait on the tarmac of more than half an hour, the 100 freed hostages breathed a sigh of relief when at 7.45 p.m. the Air France Jumbo’s four engines finally roared into life and the huge plane began to move. Minutes later, as the Jumbo thundered down the runway, all eyes turned guiltily to the portholes on the left through which they could see the Old Terminal that still held the Israelis, the crew and one or two others. Only as the plane’s rear wheels left the tarmac were they finally able to believe that the nightmare was over.
Champagne was served, but Cojot–feeling guilty that he had abandoned the others–could not drink his glass. He felt better when a grateful female passenger commented: ‘Without you my husband wouldn’t be here.’
He did not consider himself a hero; just someone who had behaved decently in a difficult situation. Certainly his fellow hostages appreciated what he had done and warmly applauded him as he returned to his seat from the cockpit where he had been invited by the captain. The Yachtsman–Briton Tony Russell–stopped him and remarked: ‘One of the things that surprised me during this adventure is that you seemed prepared for it.’
Cojot smiled in response, but he knew that Russell was right. ‘Actually, I was prepared for it,’ he told himself, ‘by thirty years of fantasies, reading and dreams. I had been given the opportunity to live through a version, though certainly very watered down, of my nightmare. Had I lived it well? Could I wake up at last?’
It was dark when the yellow bus returned to the Old Terminal building at 8 p.m. with dinner for the remaining 102 hostages. The menu was the same; but this time it was principally the passengers who distributed the food. The crew were curiously listless, as if suffering a delayed reaction to the terrorists’ insistence that they remain in Uganda to the bitter end.
Though resigned to spending at least one more night at the airport, the hostages were still optimistic of a speedy release, and conversations and games continued in good humour. Most were settled into their new sleeping areas, with Willy joining a group of young French-speakers at the left front of the hall, near the exit, that included Jean-Jacques Mimouni. Next to them, a little further from the windows, sat a fifty-five-year-old Russian immigrant to Israel called Ida Borochovich who was travelling with her grown-up son. Opposite the Borochoviches lay Maggy and Agnès on two mattresses.
Later, finding it difficult to go to sleep, Jean-Jacques decided to tell his companions a joke. ‘On his deathbed,’ he said in hushed tones, ‘a Jewish businessman calls for his wife, “Sarah, are you there?” She replies: “Yes, Abraham, I am here.” He then calls for his son, “Jacob, are you there?” “Yes, father, I am here.” Finally he calls for his daughter, “Rachael, are you there?” “Yes, my dear father, I am here.” “Then who,” responds the businessman, “is looking after the shop?”’
The group burst into laughter, annoying their neighbours who were trying to sleep. One went over to Michel Bacos, lying with other members of the crew near the bar, and implored him to intervene. A weary Bacos did so, telling Jean-Jacques and the others not to be so inconsiderate. He seemed to them nervous and tense, and they largely ignored his pleas.
When Willy offered round a flask of cognac, only one of the girls accepted; the others feared the reaction of the terrorists who had earlier forbidden the consumption of alcohol. But they need not have worried. Keen to celebrate the news of Israel’s supposed capitulation, and to flirt a little with the girls, Khaled and Ali came over with a bottle of champagne and another of whisky. Maggy drank a little champagne; some of the boys drank whisky.
It was a bizarre scene. Seated with their backs to the door, the two armed hijackers–one holding a gun, the other with a revolver in his belt–were sharing a drink with some of the younger hostages, making small talk and laughing. Only Agnès felt uneasy and refused to join in.
The party eventually wound down and at 11.30 p.m. the terrorists turned off the first row of lights. Within half an hour the room was quiet, but for the odd snorer and the buzz of mosquitoes.
At 8.30 p.m., a secret meeting was held at the Nairobi house of Charles Njonjo, Kenya’s powerful attorney-general and right-hand man to President Jomo Kenyatta, to discuss the possibility of refuelling Israeli military planes at Nairobi’s Embakasi Aiport. As well as Njonjo, the participants included senior Mossad agents and three key players in Kenyan politics and security: Ben Gethi, the head of the General Service Unit; Bernard Hinga, commissioner of police; and a white former Cabinet minister with mutton-chop whiskers called Bruce McKenzie.
McKenzie was an enigmatic figure. Born in South Africa on New Year’s Day 1919, the son of a farm manager, he had won the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross with Bar flying twin-engined Wellington bombers during the Second World War, reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel at the age of twenty-three, and commanding, for a time, an anti-shipping squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force whose motto was ‘Invenimus et Delimus’ (‘We Find and Destroy’).
After the war McKenzie settled in Kenya, then a British crown colony. Before the country gained its independence in 1963, he astutely backed the jailed opposition leader and future president Jomo Kenyatta, and was later rewarded with a post in his Cabinet as minister of agriculture. He also had interests in a number of businesses–including Cooper Motors, which held the Kenyan and Ugandan distributorships for Volkswagen Beetles and British Leyland trucks–and it was partly to protect them that he supported the toppling of Milton Obote by Idi Amin in 1971. He opposed many of Milton Obote’s policies–particularly his expulsion of ethnic Kenyans and his nationalization of foreign businesses–and assumed that a former British soldier like Amin would be a great improvement.
McKenzie was close to senior figures in both the British and Israeli foreign intelligence services. In 1966 his future wife Christina had introduced him to Zvi Zamir, then Israel’s military attaché to the UK but soon to become the chief of the Mossad. Zamir became a close friend and attended their wedding. McKenzie, in return, believed passionately in Israel’s cause, which he saw as that of the underdog, and during the Six-Day War he had used his contacts and influence to enable Israel to procure more military aircraft.
His links with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, were even stronger. According to his wife Christina, he ‘worked with British intelligence’ and knew all the MI6 officers–or ‘friends’ as he called them–in Nairobi. He was not a spy as such, but rather a ‘conduit for information flowing both ways’. Christina had introduced him to both Sir Maurice Oldfield, chief of MI6 (or ‘C’) in 1976, and David Stirling, the founder of the SAS. The investigative journalist Chapman Pincher, who lived near McKenzie in Surrey and became a close friend, often ‘talked with many intelligence officials’ at McKenzie’s house ‘who would not have wished to be seen with me in London’.
Under the circumstances it is possible that McKenzie informed either Oldfield or his British handlers of Israel’s plan to rescue the hostages. Whether this information was ever passed to the British government is doubtful. There is, for example, no hint in FCO papers that Crosland or any of his officials knew about Israeli intentions in advance.
Though McKenzie had resigned his Cabinet post in 1970, he was still ‘the most influential white man in East Africa’ and remained the ‘chief confidant’ to President Kenyatta, who ‘trusted him because he knew a white man could never usurp him’ and treated him ‘like a son’. He now divided his time between Kenya and England–where he and Christina lived in a large mansion called Knowle Park in Cranleigh, Surrey, with their two young sons–but was in Nairobi for part of the hijacking crisis.
It was almost certainly McKenzie who, at the Mossad’s request, set up the meeting at Njonjo’s house. Without being too specific–for fear of forewarning the Ugandans–the Israelis told the Kenyans that the IDF was ‘planning something’ and ‘might need your help’. They talked about the possibility of refuelling military planes at Nairobi, but did not say how many. Of course Njonjo and the others knew very well that this had to be connected to the Entebbe hijacking and said, in principle, they would be happy to help. They still owed the Mossad a favour for helping to stymie the PFLP–EA plot to shoot down an El Al plane as it landed at Nairobi Airport; they wanted to get even with Amin for, as they saw it, assisting the terrorists by smuggling their weapons into Kenya from Uganda; and, crucially, they did not want to have to admit to the hijackers–and the world–that the reason why they could not release their fellow PFLP–EA terrorists was that they had secretly handed them over to the Israelis.
They had not yet discussed the issue with an ailing President Kenyatta–in his eighties now and suffering from poor health–because they felt it was better that he did not know. That way he could claim, with complete sincerity, that he had no foreknowledge of the arrival of the Israeli planes.
After the meeting, Njonjo and McKenzie decided that once all the arrangements were in place for the Israeli planes to refuel at Nairobi Airport–with the details to be agreed between Dany Saadon, the El Al general manager in Nairobi, and the airport director–they would both leave the capital: McKenzie to return to England in time for a scheduled holiday in Norway with his wife; Njonjo to stay on a friend’s farm at Nanyuki near Mount Kenya. They, too, were planning to deny any involvement. The agreed cover story for letting the Israeli planes land was that it was a last-minute humanitarian act to enable the sick and wounded to get hospital treatment.
When Muki Betser arrived at Paratroops House, the clubhouse for off-duty airborne soldiers in Ramat Gan, to the east of Tel Aviv, he found a host of officers gathered for Dan Shomron’s 8 p.m. planning session: Oren, Barak, Biran, Embar, as well as senior commanders from the signals corps, medical corps, Sayeret Golani and Sayeret Tzanchanim. Both these latter units were part of Shomron’s Infantry and Paratroops Command, and had been earmarked to support the Unit’s assault on the Old Terminal. Convinced that the operation would succeed, and become part of Israel’s ‘heritage’, Shomron wanted to give both of these illustrious units, but particularly the Golani, a share in the glory.
The only key officer still absent, at this stage, was Betser’s boss Yoni.
Shomron began the briefing by going over the order of battle ‘from top to bottom, filling in the details of the plan’. As Hercules One taxied down the runway, he explained, ten paratroopers from Colonel Matan Vilnai’s Sayeret Tzanchanim would jump from the side doors and lay electric lanterns along both sides of the runway in case the Ugandans turned off the landing lights.
Then, once Hercules One had come to a halt at the far end of the main runway, the Unit’s break-in teams of thirty-six men, masquerading as Ugandan soldiers, would drive off it in a Mercedes and two Land Rovers and head down the original runway towards the Old Terminal. They would drive with headlights on and at a normal speed so as not to excite suspicion. Ehud Barak was named as the commander of this vital element of the operation. Though no longer a member of the Unit, he was hugely experienced and Shomron trusted him to get the job done. Meanwhile Shomron himself would set up his command post, consisting of a Land Rover and eight men, between the Old and New Terminal buildings.
Seven minutes later, Hercules Two would land with another sixteen men from the Unit aboard two BTR armoured personnel carriers, commanded by Yoni’s former deputy, Major Shaul Mofaz. Their task would be to patrol the perimeter behind the Old Terminal and prevent any Ugandan reinforcements from interfering. The plane would also contain the balance of Vilnai’s sixty-nine paratroopers whose job was to capture the New Terminal building, the nearby filling station and the new control tower.
A minute later, the third Hercules would land with two more BTRs–crewed by another sixteen men from the Unit–and thirty soldiers from Colonel Uri Saguy’s Sayeret Golani. One BTR, commanded by Omer Bar-Lev, was assigned to neutralize the MiG airfield beside the Old Terminal, while the other joined Mofaz on the perimeter. The task of Saguy’s men–some of whom would fly on Hercules Four–was to cover the area between the Old Terminal and the New, support the break-in teams (if they needed it) and use their Peugeot pick-up truck to ferry the hostages to the fourth Hercules.
That last Hercules would carry the lightest load so that there was room for the hostages on the return. It would contain a twelve-man surgical team and its equipment to treat any casualties, both on the ground and on the flight back; ten blue-uniformed air force techies, a portable fuel pump and another Peugeot pick-up to transport them both; and a final detachment of twenty Golani soldiers.
A second bigger medical team in a converted Boeing 707 would–if the necessary permissions were forthcoming–set up a field hospital at Nairobi in Kenya, and would be joined there by the four Hercules if the refuelling option at Entebbe took too long. All Shomron knew at this stage, however, was that discussions were taking place and that refuelling the Hercules transports at Nairobi–not least because of the diplomatic repercussions it might have for the Kenyan government–would be a last resort.
The sixth and last aircraft he mentioned was an IAF Boeing 707 that would act as Adam’s and Peled’s command and control headquarters during the operation, circling the airfield at Entebbe and ferrying ‘real time’ information from the ground back to Rabin, Peres and Gur in the Kirya in Tel Aviv.
Shomron ended the briefing by nominating the Unit’s headquarters near Tel Aviv and an adjacent base as the training locations for all the troops involved. The Unit’s base not only had its own runway, but also had the tightest field security in the IDF. Once inside the bases, only the officers would be allowed out until the operation began. All non-vital phone lines would be disconnected and the remaining few closely monitored.
Shomron had barely finished speaking when a grinning Yoni Netanyahu entered the room. He had come straight from a nearby military airport, having flown up from the Sinai by light plane, and was eager to hear about the role the Unit would play in the rescue operation. As Muki Betser rose from the table to shake his hand, he thought of their shared experiences together–from the capture of the Syrian officers to the Yom Kippur War–and how much he had missed Netanyahu’s calm professionalism.
At 9 p.m., Shimon Peres picked up the phone in his office and dialled Moshe Dayan’s personal number. Unperturbed by Rabin’s rebuffing of his suggestion that Dayan should be sent as special envoy to Uganda, Peres was keen to hear his predecessor’s opinion on the possible rescue plan.
He got through to Dayan’s housekeeper who explained that her employers were out for dinner with friends from Australia. ‘Do you know where?’ asked Peres, stressing that it was a matter of vital national security.
The housekeeper gave him the name of a well-known restaurant on Tel Aviv’s seafront. He immediately called for his military aide Arye Braun, who had also been an aide to Dayan during the latter’s time as defense secretary, and together they drove the short distance across town to the restaurant. Apologizing profusely to Dayan’s guests and his wife Ruth for the intrusion, Peres took Dayan to a quiet corner table where they could talk. Braun pulled out a map and Peres began to outline the rescue plan. When the defense minister dutifully listed the objections that had been raised by Rabin and Gur, and the possible obstacles, Dayan waved them aside. ‘Shimon, this is a plan,’ he declared, ‘that I support not one hundred per cent but one hundred and fifty per cent! There has to be a military operation.’
Fortified by this unequivocal declaration of support from Israel’s most famous soldier, Peres returned to the Kirya determined to win over the other members of the ministerial committee. He began by calling Transport Minister Gad Yaacobi and inviting him to a meeting at the Kirya. From the same faction of the Labour Party as Peres, Yaacobi was also a confidant of Dayan. Peres briefed him on the plan in general and on his conversation with Dayan. When he had finished, Yaacobi responded: ‘Shimon, I’m with you.’
A call then came through from Rabin’s office, summoning the pair to an 11 p.m. meeting of the ministerial committee.
‘We will now,’ said Yitzkak Rabin, opening the 11 p.m. session of the ministerial committee in his office in the Kirya, ‘discuss the arrangements of the negotiation that begins tomorrow through the good offices of the French government.’
‘Surely,’ responded Yigal Allon, ‘the French should take the lead in this as they are directly responsible for the plane and its hijackers?’
Rabin waved his hand dismissively as if to a child, provoking a bitter exchange between the pair. When it was over, the prime minister asked Gandhi Ze’evi, the man he had appointed to conduct the negotiations via the French, to explain how he intended to do this. ‘I propose to say from the start,’ said Ze’evi, ‘that Israel is negotiating only on its own behalf–not on the behalf of other countries that were required to release prisoners. Furthermore that we will specify the number we are prepared to release–forty–and not waver from that number. As for the list of men to be freed, Israel, and Israel alone, will compile it. The negotiations will take place in France, with France or another third party acting as a go-between. The handover of hostages for prisoners will also take place in France, at a military airfield, and not in Uganda. Failing that, a plane carrying the prisoners and another carrying the hostages would take off simultaneously from Tel Aviv and Entebbe, under mutually agreeable third-party supervision.’
Ze’evi paused before continuing. ‘Our operative stages will be as follows: A. To submit our proposal to the French. B. To get their reactions, and those of Idi Amin and Wadie Haddad. C. Discuss the gap between positions, and receive lists of the passengers at Entebbe. D. To carry out the exchange.’
Rabin nodded his assent. ‘Thank you, Gandhi. There is no need to go into any further detail at this stage. My feeling is that France will not provide logistical help apart from ferrying messages between the two sides.’
‘They certainly won’t fight Uganda,’ said Allon caustically. Upset that Rabin had chosen a non-diplomat to conduct negotiations, he tried to reassert his ministry’s authority over Ze’evi. But Rabin was having none of it and, as the meeting ended, Allon commented bitterly: ‘If I’m getting in your way, appoint someone else to serve as acting foreign minister!’
It had been for Shimon Peres a ‘particularly tense’ session. With the military plan still taking shape, he did not want to mention it to Rabin until it had Gur’s full support. He was, however, pleased with the outcome of the meeting. There would, he knew, be ‘much diplomatic activity to span the two and a half days until the hijackers’ latest ultimatum ran out–and to create a convenient cover beneath which’ the IDF could continue its ‘preparations for a military rescue’.
It was past midnight when Yoni Netanyahu and Muki Betser settled down at a long Formica-topped table in Yoni’s office, situated at one end of a low hut, its walls covered with maps, photos and weapons donated by previous commanding officers.
Briefed on the plan by Betser as they drove to the Unit’s base, Netanyahu now set to work fine-tuning the various roles his men would play and the equipment they would use. He chose Betser to be his deputy for the operation and to command the four break-in teams, three of three men and one of six. Mindful of the mistakes made at Ma’alot, Betser said he wanted to lead the first break-in team. ‘C’mon, Muki,’ responded Netanyahu, ‘you know it’s against doctrine.’
‘I do,’ said Betser, fully aware that senior ranks were never first through the door. ‘But I don’t want a repeat of Ma’alot where I should have gone up the ladder first. I want to make sure the job’s done properly. I insist upon it.’
Yoni sighed. ‘You’re impossible,’ he said, conceding defeat.
Betser then assigned the break-in teams to specific jobs: Captain Giora Zussman’s team of six would go through the two doors into the Israeli hall and the adjacent VVIP area where the terrorists slept; the team under Yiftach Reicher, Yoni’s new deputy, was tasked with entering the first door into the customs hall, climbing the stairs to the second floor and neutralizing the Ugandan soldiers who were sleeping there; while Betser himself would lead two break-in teams through the doors that led from the tarmac into the main hall.
Just fifteen men were assigned to these four break-in crews, leaving a further nineteen outside to hold off with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and heavy machine-guns any Ugandans who tried to intervene. Yoni would direct operations from the front of the Old Terminal, assisted by Tamir Pardo, his communications officer, Dr David Hassin and a reserve company commander Alik Ron.
While Netanyahu drew up the order of battle–selecting his most experienced soldiers, many of whom had just been given pre-discharge leave, for the most difficult tasks–Betser supervised the building of a model of the Old Terminal from blueprints provided by Solel Boneh. Using two-by-four timber for a frame, his men put up burlap and canvas sheets to mimic the exterior and interior walls and doorways of the terminal building. As soon as the model was ready, and sited alongside the Unit’s runway, just like the real thing at Entebbe, they began practising the break-ins.
Eventually Ehud Barak arrived at the base, having just attended a meeting at the Kirya, and there was obvious tension between him and Netanyahu as they went over the entire plan, Barak making various suggestions. Netanyahu resented the fact that he had been superseded as leader of the assault troops–telling Betser earlier, ‘I don’t see any alternative to my being in command’–and he made little attempt to hide his disgruntlement.
Barak understood this and would have felt the same himself if their roles had been reversed. But he was not going to stand aside. He may also have felt his appointment was for the best: the tension between Netanyahu and some of his men was well known to Barak and other ex-members of the Unit, and there were even rumours that Shlomo Gazit, the general with overall responsibility for the Unit, was about to replace Netanyahu a few months early with Amiram Levine.
Once they had finished going over the plan, Barak gave Netanyahu a lift home–they lived in the same Tel Aviv apartment building, one floor apart–so that they could both snatch a couple of hours’ sleep.
Meanwhile the support troops from the Golani and Tzanchanim Sayerets were arriving at an adjacent base to begin rehearsing their own roles in the operation. Among them was a promising twenty-one-year-old junior officer in the Golani called Noam Tamir. Having recently passed out first of a class of officer-cadets, Tamir was training with his squad when word arrived of an impending operation. They speculated on the destination, but Tamir did not make the connection with the Entebbe hijacking until he had attended the initial briefing at the Unit’s base. He felt both relief and pride that he had been selected, but no fear.
Feeling just as upbeat was Colonel Dr Ephraim Sneh, the chief medical officer for the Infantry and Paratroops Command and the man chosen to head the field medical team earmarked for Entebbe. Sneh’s Polish-born father Moshe, also a doctor, had been one of the leading figures in the Haganah before entering the Knesset where he was a member of various left-wing parties. Sneh himself had begun his training as a doctor in 1964, at the age of twenty, after completing an initial two years’ military service with the Nahal infantry battalion. The IDF had released him six months early on condition that, having qualified as a doctor, he agreed to serve two more years as a medical officer.
He eventually joined the Tzanchanim (paratroopers), initially as a battalion doctor and then with the brigade. After a spell out of the army, training as a surgeon, he returned to the Tzanchanim at the start of the Yom Kippur War and commanded the paratroopers’ medical unit during the costly and brutal Battle of the Chinese Farm in the Sinai. The experience of treating a huge number of paratroopers and armoured soldiers in combat conditions, almost constantly under fire, had convinced Sneh that he could cope with anything. He was, therefore, quite unfazed by the orders he received late on Thursday 2 July that he needed to put together a medical plan for the Entebbe operation and command the teams on the ground.
He decided to take with him a surgical team of eleven: a chief surgeon (Lieutenant-Colonel Eran Dolev, a future surgeon-general of the IDF), an anaesthetist, a gynaecologist and an orthopaedic surgeon; a liaison officer whose sole task was to keep the hostages calm during the flight back; and six male medics. A further six doctors would be embedded with the various combat troops.
One of Sneh’s surgical team was a thirty-six-year-old South African-born gynaecologist and obstetrician called Jossy Faktor. When Faktor got the evening call to report for duty he was with his wife Barbara celebrating some friends’ tenth wedding anniversary in the town of Ra’anana, north of Tel Aviv. The two couples were close, having grown up together in South Africa through the Habonim–a socialist-Zionist cultural youth movement–and were literally clinking champagne glasses when Faktor had to leave. Faktor’s job the following day was to obtain large supplies of blood plasma without arousing suspicions, particularly among the media, that a rescue operation was about to be launched. He managed this by spreading a story that ‘a crisis was developing on the northern border with Lebanon and we would need medical teams and blood’. It worked.
Sneh himself, on hearing that many of the hostages were suffering from stomach complaints, was preoccupied with the problem of ‘a hundred shitting people and no toilets’ on the Hercules. So he arranged–via a ‘very smart’ logistics officer called Rami Dotan*–to take along two aluminium milk cans that the hostages could use in extremis. Dotan sourced them from a local moshavim.
Neither on Thursday evening nor later did Sneh have doubts. Instead he had ‘total confidence that the operation would be accomplished and we’d come home’. Why? Because he knew all the senior men involved–Shomron, Vilnai, Barak and Netanyahu–and regarded them as the IDF’s ‘A-team’. Such a team, he felt certain, was ‘invincible’: there was ‘none better than these guys to tackle unexpected problems, to overcome and prevail’.
Others were not so certain. Twenty-one-year-old First Sergeant Amir Ofer was enjoying the customary pre-discharge leave given to soldiers who were about to finish their military service, having spent the previous two and a half years in the Unit, when he received a phone call from Yoni Netanyahu’s secretary. He was to report to the base in the morning. ‘Are we going far?’ he asked, knowing it had to be an operation.
‘Very far,’ she replied.
He realized at once it had to be Entebbe and that the Unit would spearhead any assault. His mind flashed back to earlier rescue attempts that had not gone well: Ma’alot and, a year later, the storming of the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv that had cost seven Fatah terrorists, eight civilian hostages and three soldiers–one of them, Itamar Ben-David, from Ofer’s own squad–their lives. How much harder, then, would be an operation so far from Israel and in a country where the army appeared to be cooperating with the hijackers?
Tormented by such doubts, Ofer lay awake until he finally convinced himself that a criminal like Amin would surely be open to bribes. If Amin agreed to look the other way, Ofer reasoned, the rescue would not be nearly so dangerous. Only now could he sleep.
Before turning in for the night, Shimon Peres invited Motta Gur to his home in the hope of persuading the IDF chief, who still had serious reservations, that the proposed military option was both necessary and viable. Gur arrived after midnight. ‘Motta,’ said Peres, ‘I don’t intend to suggest a plan against the judgement of the chief of staff, but I want you to understand that, in my opinion, the future of this country and the nation is in the balance. This is the time for boldness. You can have nothing without sacrifices. And I’m not deluding myself–there are likely to be some along the way. Failure will mean that I have to draw some personal conclusions. But if we give in to terrorists, not even the faintest memory of us will remain.’
The most Gur would concede, after a long discussion, was for the planners to set up a model of Entebbe based on the data then available (an undertaking that was already under way at the Unit’s base). It was a step forward, but the plan was still a long way from becoming reality. Peres noted in his diary for 1 July: ‘I spoke to Motta with all my powers of persuasion… Today was the hardest of my life.’