Major (Ret) Rami Sherman – We flew for one reason, to rescue life. And we did
Maurice Klein speaks with Major (Ret) Rami Sherman, veteran commando of Sayeret Maktal, the premier Tier-1 special forces and deep-reconnaissance unit of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
Fifty years ago, he was part of Operation Entebbe, code-named Operation Thunderbolt, when the IDF undertook the long-range counter-terrorism mission in Uganda, which was retroactively named Operation Yonatan in honour of Yoni Netanyahu.
He was the commanding officer who led the mission and, most sadly, was the only Sayerat Maktal fatality of the mission. The mission was launched in response to the hijacking of an Air France Airbus between the cities of Tel Aviv and Paris, during a stopover in Athens.
The audacious rescue operation by Israel in July 1976 stunned the world when Sayeret Maktal commandos flew 4000 kilometres into the heart of Africa to rescue 102 Israeli citizens, Jews and the French crew held by Palestinian terrorists at the Entebbe airport in Uganda.
