![\"Yonatan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1782458770_549_.webp\")
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Yonatan (Yoni) Netanyahu, the commander of Sayeret Matkal, in 1974. Credit: GPO.<\/p>\n
The operation freed the Israeli hostages and the French flight crew. Four people were killed during the rescue, including Lt.-Col. Yonatan \u201cYoni\u201d Netanyahu, commander of the IDF\u2019s elite Sayeret Matkal unit and the only Israeli soldier killed in the operation. The mission, originally codenamed \u201cOperation Thunderbolt\u201d and later dubbed \u201cOperation Entebbe\u201d by the media, was renamed \u201cOperation Yonatan\u201d in his honor.<\/p>\n
Rare recordings and transcripts<\/p>\n
For the first time, the State Archives also released recordings of 26 telephone conversations involving Rabin\u2019s chief of staff, Eli Mizrahi, with the prime minister, the Foreign Ministry director-general and other senior officials during the crisis.<\/p>\n
Also made public are transcripts of five conversations between Col. Baruch Bar-Lev, a former Israeli military attach\u00e9 to Uganda, and Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, whom Israel unsuccessfully sought to persuade to intervene on behalf of the hostages.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe you have a God-given opportunity to save people and prove to the world that the things others said and wrote about you were untrue,\u201d Bar-Lev told Amin during one conversation. \u201cIf you save the people, you will be a holy man.\u201d<\/p>\n
The collection also includes an interview with hostage Yitzhak David, a Holocaust survivor who described how the separation of the Israeli hostages from the others revived memories of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
In addition to government protocols, the newly released archive contains diplomatic correspondence between Israel and France, communications with governments whose citizens were among the hostages, files documenting discussions at the U.N. Security Council following the rescue, letters sent to Rabin from world leaders and private citizens after the operation, and photographs and documents related to the commemoration of Yoni Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n