The commemoration of Israel’s most famous military operation should have been a celebratory moment for Matan Vilnai. Instead, the second-in-command of the Entebbe raid, in which special forces rescued 102 hostages, boycotted the ceremony, along with many of the soldiers who took part in the daring mission.
“What’s the point in celebrating an operation that happened 50 years ago? I haven’t celebrated since October 7,” Bill Nye, a retired Israeli Defense Force (IDF) general, told CNN. “There are thousands of soldiers fighting right now, thousands of reservists serving, and they’re celebrating?”
On July 4, 1976, Israeli special forces flew some 2,500 miles through mostly hostile airspace and landed at the airport in Entebbe, Uganda, in the dark. Within an hour, 102 hostages held by the Palestinian and German hijackers, who were demanding the release of dozens of convicted terrorists, were freed. The plane was hijacked en route from Tel Aviv to Paris and diverted to Entebbe.
Three hostages were killed during the operation, as was Yonatan (Yoni) Netanyahu, a 30-year-old commander who became a national icon. Operation Thunderbolt, known in Hebrew as the Entebbe raid, was later renamed “Operation Yonatan” in honor of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Entebbe became one of the defining moments in Israel’s national story, a symbol of the country’s promise to go anywhere and take extraordinary risks to protect its people and bring them home.
It is also the beginning of another story. Netanyahu’s younger brother, Benjamin, emerged from public life in the shadow of Yoni’s death and would go on to serve as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
Half a century later, that legacy is full of scars and reflects Israel’s deep internal divisions. At a national ceremony to mark the anniversary on Sunday, dozens of veterans of the operation – including senior commanders and special forces soldiers who stormed the airport that night, as well as some of the hostages they rescued – boycotted the event hosted by President Isaac Herzog in protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the guest of honor.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Yoni. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t consult with Yoni,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the ceremony, linking the Entebbe attack to Israel’s operations against Iran. He said the 1976 operation “turned the impossible into possible” and demonstrated that terrorism must be countered with force. “This is what we are doing. We are systematically destroying the Iranian axis of evil that was trying to advance its plan to destroy Israel.”
However, most of the men who once served at his brother’s side did not come to hear his speeches.
“We reject the mission as a window-dressing settlement,” the veterans wrote in an open letter, accusing Netanyahu of “abandoning” Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and of allowing mass draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men, even as reservists have repeatedly served in combat missions on multiple fronts.
“This is a matter of conscience,” former military intelligence chief Uri Sagi, who commanded Golani forces in the 1976 attack, wrote on social media, explaining why he refused to side with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Benny Davidson, who was 13 years old when he was rescued from Entebbe, also avoided attending the ceremony, saying he would not take part in “an exhibition that covers the breakdown of values and leadership.” Instead, he led a small, silent protest outside the presidential palace.
The rift between Prime Minister Netanyahu and his brother’s former comrades is widening. In 2023, at the height of mass protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, members of the Entebbe Rescue Team demonstrated at Ben Gurion Airport, arriving in a black Mercedes car similar to the one that drove the special forces onto the Entebbe tarmac at the start of the operation.
“Then we embarked on ‘Operation Jonathan,’ today we launch ‘Operation Benjamin,'” they declared, turning the protests into a second rescue operation aimed at “hurrying the entire country towards a dangerous regime change and the release of the prime minister who had been ‘kidnapped’ by extremists.”
The ongoing war has deepened rifts since October 7, with several Entebbe veterans taking part in weekly protests, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strike a deal to end the fighting and bring the hostages home.
“Entebbe’s legacy is far from unifying. We all have our reasons, but we cannot become props for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cynical memorial service,” said Bill Nye, the mission’s deputy commander.
During the ceremony, Herzog attempted to rise above the cracks. “Operation Yonatan does not belong to any individual or group. It prioritizes all conflicts,” he said. He called the mission a “moral manifesto” that established the enduring principle that “nations may have borders, but responsibilities know no borders.”
Drawing its own line from 1976 to the current war, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said: “The compass that has guided us since that night in Entebbe, and even more intensely since October 7, is driven by a deep and clear understanding that we, and we alone, are responsible for the lives and safety of our people.”
Whatever the hole left by the boycott, the venue was filled with young soldiers, bereaved families, survivors of the Entebbe attack, and veterans who chose to participate.
Among them was Doron Hannan, a member of the crew who participated in the original mission. He said he understood the feelings of those who decided to boycott but had “swallowed” their discomfort because the anniversary was too important to skip.
“I’m uncomfortable with some of the numbers here, but we’re here to meet the crew and remember the old days,” he told CNN, noting how much has changed since then. “I am also ashamed of what Israel has become. This is not the country we fought for.”
