**Israel’s foreign minister is to visit the site of one of his country’s boldest overseas military operations - the old airport in Entebbe, Uganda.**Avigdor Lieberman will lay a wreath at the site where Israeli commandoes freed more than 100 people from a plane that was hijacked by militants.
Uganda’s military ruler Idi Amin was furious at the 1976 operation.
Amin said Kenya colluded with Israel in the raid and hundreds of Kenyans living in Uganda were massacred soon after.
Some analysts believe the raid helped to destabilise the Amin government, which was eventually overthrown in 1979.
Top-secret plan
Mr Lieberman is stopping off at the old terminal as part of a short tour of African countries aimed at boosting Israel’s business interest in the region.
Yoni Netanyahu, brother of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was killed during the operation.
But the Entebbe raid was a source of celebration for many Israelis.
The crisis began on 27 June 1976 when two Palestinians and two Germans hijacked a plane that had originated in Israel - with a third of its passengers being Israeli or non-Israeli Jews.
The hijackers - from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Baader-Meinhof gang - diverted the Paris-bound plane to Entebbe, where it landed in the early hours of 28 June.
“This operation will certainly be inscribed in the annals of military history, in legend and in national tradition”
** Yitzhak Rabin
Former Israeli Prime Minister**
Some 245 passengers and 12 crew were herded into the airport’s old terminal.
The hijackers demanded that dozens of their imprisoned colleagues be freed, and threatened to start killing passengers if their demands were not met.
Israel offered to negotiate with the hijackers and had the deadline put back, but the militants then released all of the hostages who were not Israeli or Jewish.
The Israeli cabinet swiftly approved a top-secret plan to free the hostages by flying into Entebbe and driving to the old terminal in a black Mercedes, to fool the guards into believing Amin was paying a visit.
The operation did not go as planned though, and the Israelis fought with Ugandan sentries, killing 20 of them.
They then killed all of the hijackers and freed most of the hostages.
Three hostages died during the raid, and the Israeli commander was also killed.
Then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said at the time: “This operation will certainly be inscribed in the annals of military history, in legend and in national tradition.”