"Daring operations for the sake of Israel's security take place all the time, some even thousands of kilometers away from home," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, at the official state ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the IDF's renowned July 1976 Entebbe hostage rescue operation. In the raid, Israeli troops freed more than 100 hostages, most of them Israelis, whose plane had been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists the previous week and who were being held at the airport in Entebbe, Uganda. Netanyahu's older brother, Yoni Netanyahu, headed the main assault team and was killed in the operation. The rescue, originally known as Operation Thunderbolt, was later renamed Operation Yonatan in his memory. At the ceremony on Sunday, Netanyahu said the operation was the "most daring rescue mission in history." "The dangers from that era still exist today. We will always fight terrorism without fear," he said. Among those at the ceremony were President Reuven Rivlin, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, Opposition Leader Isaac Herzog, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, Shin Bet security agency chief Nadav Argaman, Israel Police Commissioner Insp. Gen. Roni Alsheikh, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev. Former President Shimon Peres, who was defense minister at the time, was also present. Netanyahu spoke about the tortuous moments when his brother's fate was unclear. "I was waiting for hours on end for Iddo [the youngest of the three Netanyahu brothers] to call me back, but nothing happened," he said. "I had a hunch that our beloved brother Yoni had been killed. Then I embarked on a seven-hour journey from Boston to Cornell University where my father taught, to tell my parents that their eldest son had fallen. I will never forget their cries of agony. These cries have been part of me ever since, and I have kept hearing them ever since. It [the operation] underscores the importance of having a national home after the Holocaust." Netanyahu turned to former paratrooper Surin Hershko, who was made a paraplegic by a bullet that hit him during the raid. "We have been meeting for 40 years, and every time we meet I am awed by your nobility, the inner strengths you have, and your determination to lead a normal life, to learn and to create," Netanyahu said. Netanyahu, who returned from a four-day Africa tour last week that included a ceremony at Entebbe, said the operation helped "shatter the wicked rule of [Ugandan dictator] Idi Amin Dada, who murdered half a million of his own people." Speaking at Sunday's ceremony, Rivlin quoted the words the commandos told the hostages: "We have come to take you home." "These simple words encapsulate the solidarity, strength, and dedication of our troops," Rivlin said. "The operation was without a doubt one of the IDF's most sophisticated and impressive feats." Rivlin praised Hershko for saying that he would have done it again, despite the heavy personal toll. "This is the kind of courage we need to teach our younger generations," Rivlin said. Rivlin told the crowd that he had known Yoni Netanyahu. "Yoni had one mischievous, dreamy eye that showered everyone with affection, and another eye for aiming his weapon," Rivlin said.
