Book review: Operation Thunderbolt
After an Air France flight carrying 258 passengers and crew from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and flown to Uganda’s Entebbe airport in 1976, Israeli commandos flew 2,000 miles undetected to pull off a daring rescue mission.
The story of how they caught the terrorists and their supporter, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, completely off-guard has been made into countless books, films and documentaries, but nevertheless, military historian Saul David’s book is a stylish addition to the canon.
Combining the pacing of a thriller with the attention to detail of a scholarly work, it draws on first-hand accounts to tell the story from the point of view of the terrified hostages, the commandos who carried out the raid and the Israeli politicians faced with the dilemma of caving into terrorism or approving the risky mission.
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