Israel\u2019s military attach\u00e9 in Uganda<\/a> and knew Amin from the years when Israeli officers had trained Ugandan forces. By 1976, that old relationship had become one of the few possible openings into the dictator\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n\u201cBurka suggested,\u201d one Israeli archive note recorded, \u201cIdi lives in a fantasy.\u201d Perhaps, officials discussed, one could offer him money or speak with him by telephone and try to \u201cfire\u201d or \u201cexcite\u201d his imagination.<\/p>\n
That was the logic behind the Bar-Lev channel. Amin\u2019s vanity, ego, and need to be seen as a world figure were now part of the Israeli calculation.<\/p>\n
The formal route still ran through France. But the personal route, the more delicate and uncertain one, ran through Burka. The question was whether Amin could be flattered into acting, or whether he was already too deeply tied to the hijackers\u2019 demands.<\/p>\n
Rabin moved cautiously. The discussions show that he did not want to rush the matter into a wider cabinet forum before knowing how the French would act and whether the move could actually be coordinated.<\/p>\n
There was still diplomacy to manage, but the search for a way to reach Amin directly had already begun.<\/p>\n
By that afternoon, Bar-Lev would be waiting by the phone.<\/p>\n
ACT IV \u2014 Burka\u2019s telephone line<\/p>\n
By the afternoon of June 30, the official channels had not broken the deadlock. France was still appealing to Amin. Israel was still weighing negotiations. The deadline was moving closer.<\/p>\n
Burka Bar-Lev was waiting by the phone. When the call came, Amin recognized his voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are you, my friend?\u201d he asked, according to accounts of the conversation.<\/p>\n
Bar-Lev knew how to speak to him. He did not begin with accusations. Rather, he appealed to Amin\u2019s ego. Here was a chance, he told him, to be remembered as a peacemaker. If he freed the hostages, he would go down in history as a great man.<\/p>\n
Amin seemed to respond warmly. He said he had spoken with the PFLP and had good news to report: 48 hostages had been released and handed to the French ambassador. Then he told Bar-Lev to listen to Radio Uganda that afternoon.<\/p>\n
When Bar-Lev pressed him about the Israeli hostages, the warmth gave way to threats. The remaining hostages, Amin said, were surrounded by explosives. The Israeli government had to answer the Palestinians\u2019 demands.<\/p>\n
That was the contradiction inside the call. Amin spoke as though he wanted to save lives, but the message he carried was the terrorists\u2019 ultimatum.<\/p>\n
At 9 p.m., Israeli ministers met. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) briefed them on \u201cthe Burka-Idi Amin conversation,\u201d as in call No. 1, which had taken place around 2 p.m. that day.<\/p>\n
The discussion quickly turned to the deadline and the need to make a decision by 2 p.m. Thursday. Rabin wanted the decision sharpened before the deadline, because \u201ceven no decision is a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel was now choosing under a deadline set by terrorists, broadcasted from Uganda, and carried into Jerusalem through Amin.<\/p>\n
The military reality was also put on the table. Mordechai \u201cMotta\u201d Gur, the IDF chief of staff, warned that from that moment until 2 p.m. the following day, the IDF could not carry out an operation.<\/p>\n
However, the option of a military or secret-service operation to release the hostages was not abandoned. The ministers would reconvene the next morning.<\/p>\n
At 11:30 p.m., the back-channel reached Rabin directly. The Shin Bet reported to the prime minister on \u201cAmin-Burka conversation No. 2.\u201d<\/p>\n
In accounts of the later call, Amin followed the same pattern. Bar-Lev pressed him to act, while Amin said the real PFLP leader had arrived in Uganda and that he had to negotiate with him.<\/p>\n
He said he was speaking from the airfield, had not slept for three days, and wanted to save the hostages.<\/p>\n
It was the perfect Amin performance.<\/p>\n
By then, the deadline was split in two. In Entebbe, the hostages waited under Ugandan guard, while in Jerusalem, ministers counted down to the ultimatum. Between them stood Bar-Lev\u2019s telephone line to Amin.<\/p>\n
ACT V \u2013 Israel keeps negotiating<\/p>\n
At 7:45 a.m. on July 1, the ministerial team gathered in Rabin\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Then-defense minister Shimon Peres read out the Burka-Amin conversations. Rabin brought the discussion back to the essential point: five days had almost passed, and Israel was nearing the stage of entering negotiations over an exchange.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moment comes,\u201d the note records him saying, \u201cwhen one must decide on a direction.\u201d There were two directions before them: continue the existing line, or enter negotiations.<\/p>\n
Amin\u2019s words, filtered through Burka\u2019s personal connection and the Shin Bet\u2019s reporting, were part of the debate over whether Israel should negotiate or move toward force.<\/p>\n
At 8:30 a.m., the government met in full. The decision still kept diplomacy alive.<\/p>\n
The corrected draft of the government\u2019s decision, amended by minister Yisrael Galili, stated: \u201cAuthorize the ministerial team to continue efforts to free all the hostages, and to open negotiations for that purpose, while being prepared to release imprisoned terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel had authorized negotiations and considered the release of imprisoned terrorists. It continued to test whether the hostages could be brought home without a military assault thousands of kilometers away.<\/p>\n
The meeting schedule from July 1 tells its own story. The ministerial team file lists meetings at 7:45 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 5 p.m., and 11 p.m. There was also an operational consultation at 2:40 p.m.<\/p>\n
Every few hours, the government returned to the same problems: hostages in Uganda, a deadline approaching, negotiations uncertain, Amin\u2019s unpredictable nature, and the military option moving from possibility to plan.<\/p>\n
At the July 1 deadline, Israel\u2019s cabinet had offered to negotiate with the hijackers, and, eventually, the deadline was pushed to July 4.<\/p>\n
Amin was also interested in the extension. It allowed him to travel to Port Louis, Mauritius, where he was due to hand over the chairmanship of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to Mauritian prime minister Seewoosagur Ramgoolam.<\/p>\n
July 1 was the day that showed how closely negotiation and planning were running together. Amin\u2019s performance had strategic value.<\/p>\n
The longer the world treated him as a mediator, the more time the hijackers gained; the longer Israel tried to reach him, the longer the hostages remained in a terminal controlled by his state.<\/p>\n
ACT VI \u2013 July 2: the illusion collapses<\/p>\n
At 2 p.m. on July 2, the Security Ministers Committee met in the Prime Minister\u2019s Office in Tel Aviv to discuss \u201cthe continued handling of the release of the Air France hostages in Uganda.\u201d<\/p>\n
The protocol lists Rabin, Yigal Allon, Yosef Burg, Peres, Gad Yaacobi, and other senior officials.<\/p>\n
Rabin opened the meeting by explaining why the issue had to be handled by the security ministers rather than by the full cabinet.<\/p>\n
Convening the whole government merely for a report, he warned, would create \u201cexaggerated expectations.\u201d The smaller forum had to deal with the substance. The central matter was the continued handling of the hostage crisis in Uganda, and he asked then-foreign minister Allon to begin with a diplomatic review.<\/p>\n
Comparing the timing of events, Allon said that it appeared \u201cIdi Amin and the terrorists had in effect decided on extending the ultimatum\u201d before Israel even announced its willingness to negotiate an exchange.<\/p>\n
Even if Israel could not have known this in advance, Allon said, the point still mattered, because without action, Israel might simply face another, possibly harsher, ultimatum shortly afterward.<\/p>\n
The government had just authorized negotiations. The deadline had shifted. Yet Allon was pointing to the uncomfortable possibility that Amin and the hijackers were controlling the rhythm of the crisis.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s gestures might not be shaping events, but rather only keeping pace with a timetable being set in Uganda.<\/p>\n
Allon also presented another angle: an effort was being made through the Organization of African Unity.<\/p>\n
An OAU representative, he said, had been told about the incident and about the French and Israeli positions. There were hopes that the OAU secretary-general, through French channels, might fly to Entebbe.<\/p>\n
Again, the world was trying to reach Amin through institutions, envoys, prestige, and pressure.<\/p>\n
Amin understood prestige and the value of being treated as a man whom presidents, envoys, and international organizations had to court.<\/p>\n
Allon later explained that he was not seeking to tie the Israeli hostages to \u201cany other state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The matter, he said, was between Israel and France, because France bore responsibility, especially given that the aircraft flew under a French flag.<\/p>\n
He proposed not entering a deal dictated by the terrorists, \u201cnot because of the prisoners\u2019 connection and not even because of the pressured deadline,\u201d but in order to show assertiveness, calm, and full cooperation.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/728116.jpeg\"\/)
A MAP of Entebbe\u2019s airport is displayed at a press conference in Israel following Operation Entebbe. The planning of the raid to save the hostages was aided by the fact that the airport had been built by an Israeli construction firm, with the blueprints readily available in Israel (credit: Keystone\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)ACT VII \u2014 The night Israel stopped waiting<\/p>\n
The extension of the deadline changed everything.<\/p>\n
By July 3, the decision had arrived. At 6:30 p.m., the Israeli cabinet approved the rescue mission presented by Maj.-Gen. Yekutiel Adam and Brig.-Gen. Dan Shomron. Shomron was appointed commander of the operation.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Amin, the man who had spent the week at the center of the crisis, was no longer at the airport. He was away in Mauritius, playing the international statesman.<\/p>\n
There were warnings. Uganda\u2019s ambassador to Lesotho, Isaac Lumago, reportedly heard details from Kenyan Air Force officers discussing possible Israeli compensation for assistance.<\/p>\n
He passed the information to Isaac Maliyamungu, one of Amin\u2019s senior commanders. Maliyamungu dismissed the report as \u201cgasiya\u201d \u2013 rubbish.<\/p>\n
According to other later accounts, Amin may have received a warning by telephone and began heading back to Uganda after completing his duties at the OAU meeting.<\/p>\n
A former agent of Uganda\u2019s State Research Bureau later claimed that Amin was informed of an imminent raid and was terrified of possible Israeli reprisals if Ugandan troops fought the Israeli force.<\/p>\n
Whatever Amin knew, and whenever he knew it, the result was the same. The Ugandan state that had the hostages surrounded for a week did not stop the Israelis from reaching them.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces landed at Entebbe late on July 3, the cargo bay doors of their aircraft already open. The first plane almost taxied into a ditch because the airport\u2019s precise layout was not fully known. Then the deception began.<\/p>\n
The Israelis had brought a black Mercedes and Land Rovers, imitating Amin\u2019s convoy. The hope was that, in the dark and confusion, the vehicles would pass as the president\u2019s own motorcade and bypass the airport security checks.<\/p>\n
It almost worked.<\/p>\n
As the vehicles approached the terminal, two Ugandan sentries ordered them to stop. They apparently knew that Amin had recently bought a white Mercedes. Israeli commandos then shot the sentries.<\/p>\n
The first shots were fired with silenced pistols, but another commando opened fire with an unsuppressed rifle. The sound risked alerting the hijackers earlier than planned.<\/p>\n
The assault force moved quickly toward the old terminal.<\/p>\n
For a week, Amin had controlled the stage. Now the Israelis were using his image, his vehicle, and the assumptions of his own soldiers to pierce it.<\/p>\n
The raid itself deserves its own article. It is the well-known story of the commandos, the hostages, the gunfire in the old terminal, and Yonatan Netanyahu\u2019s final moments<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn the Amin story, the raid is the moment his performance collapsed.<\/p>\n
The man who had appeared before the hostages as a protector, spoken to Bar-Lev as an old friend, carried the terrorists\u2019 warnings into Israeli decision-making, and allowed the world to treat him as mediator, was not there when the reckoning came.<\/p>\n
The Israelis stormed the terminal, killed the hijackers, freed the hostages, and flew them home. Netanyahu was killed. The aircraft returned to Israel. Entebbe entered history, while Amin was left behind, humiliated.<\/p>\n
According to later accounts, Amin raged that had he known the Israelis would strike, he could have taught them a lesson.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/728117.jpeg\"\/)
A FREED Israeli hostage is greeted upon her return to Israel after the Entebbe raid on July 3 (credit: Keystone\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Inside Uganda, the anger turned inward. Maliyamungu reportedly had 14 soldiers arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Israel and bunched together in a room at Makindye Barracks, where 12 of them were shot by the man himself.<\/p>\n
Uganda\u2019s military leadership also looked for blame at Entebbe Air Base, where commander Godwin Sule had been absent from his post during the raid.<\/p>\n
Amin\u2019s own soldiers were furious. His adviser Bob Astles later said Ugandan troops accused Amin of allowing the Israelis into the country. Amin deflected blame, claiming Ugandan civilian collaborators had helped the IDF.<\/p>\n
The mask had fallen, and the reprisals began.<\/p>\n
The most notorious victim was Dora Bloch, a 74-year-old hostage who had been taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala after choking on food before the rescue. She was still there when the Israeli aircraft left Entebbe.<\/p>\n
After the raid, men from Amin\u2019s security apparatus came to the hospital and took her away. Henry Kyemba, Uganda\u2019s attorney-general and justice minister at the time, later told the Uganda Human Rights Commission that Bloch had been dragged from her hospital bed and killed by two army officers on Amin\u2019s orders.<\/p>\n
Her body was found in 1979, after the Uganda-Tanzania War ended Amin\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n
Kenya also paid a price for its role in the rescue. Amin ordered a crackdown on Kenyans living in Uganda in retaliation for Nairobi\u2019s assistance to Israel.<\/p>\n
Later accounts say 245 Kenyans were killed, including airport staff at Entebbe, while thousands fled Uganda as refugees.<\/p>\n
ACT VIII \u2013 Amin\u2019s end<\/p>\n
Amin\u2019s own end came three years later. By 1978, the regime that had seemed so theatrical and untouchable at Entebbe was rotting from within.<\/p>\n
Uganda\u2019s economy and infrastructure had been wrecked by years of brutality and misrule, while factionalism, purges, and coup attempts increasingly split the army.<\/p>\n
Amin\u2019s circle of loyalists had narrowed, several ministers had fled or defected, and the president who had once staged himself as an African strongman was fighting to hold together a state that had become an extension of his paranoia.<\/p>\n
The final collapse came after fighting broke out along the Tanzanian border. Ugandan forces invaded Tanzanian territory in late 1978, triggering the Uganda-Tanzania War.<\/p>\n
Whether Amin ordered the invasion as a distraction from his troubles at home or had lost control of parts of his army, the result was disastrous.<\/p>\n
Tanzania counterattacked in early 1979, joined by Ugandan exiles, and Amin\u2019s forces retreated steadily despite support from Libya\u2019s Muammar Gaddafi and the PLO.<\/p>\n
By April 1979, Kampala was falling. Amin fled the capital by helicopter on April 11 as Tanzanian forces and Ugandan rebels entered the city.<\/p>\n
First, he escaped to Libya, then eventually settled in Saudi Arabia, where the royal family granted him sanctuary on condition that he stay out of politics.<\/p>\n
![\"AS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/728118.jpeg\"\/)
AS A MUSLIM, Idi Amin used his Islamic faith to align his regime with Arab nations, securing vital financial and political support, and would end his days in exile in Saudi Arabia. Here, he is pictured with King Faisal in 1972 (credit: Mohamed Amin\/Camerapix\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
From exile, Amin continued to insist that Uganda needed him and never showed remorse over his brutal reign.<\/p>\n
In July 2003, Amin fell into a coma at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Jeddah. His family appealed for him to be allowed to return to Uganda, but President Yoweri Museveni said Amin would have to \u201canswer for his sins\u201d if he came back.<\/p>\n
Amin died in Saudi Arabia on August 16, 2003, and was buried in Jeddah, far from the country he had terrorized and far from the airport where, for one week in 1976, he tried to convince the world he was a mediator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ACT I \u2013 The clock starts Just after lunchtime on June 27, 1976, the first report reached the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1911,234844,42,12428,46,43,2465,98,40,38,41,39,16619,70645],"class_list":["post-522323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-africa","tag-entebbe-rescue-operation","tag-headlines","tag-hostage","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-pflp","tag-terrorism","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uganda","tag-yitzhak-rabin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"DESPITE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/728119.jpeg\"\/)
DESPITE LATER taking revenge upon his perceived slights by Kenya, Uganda\u2019s Idi Amin initially conducted god-like relations with the country. Here, he joins a group of Maasai dancing the Adumu in Nairobi in 1973. (credit: Mohamed Amin\/Camerapix\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"ENTEBBE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/728115.jpeg\"\/)
ENTEBBE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT \u2013 the site of one of the most dramatic special operations in history. This is where the hijackers flew from Libya and were welcomed by Ugandan leader Idi Amin (credit: BADRU KATUMBA\/AFP via Getty Images)ACT II \u2014 Amin steps inside the crisis<\/p>\n