As Israel marks 50 years since Operation Entebbe, the Knesset Archives has opened classified Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee records for the first time. The files offer a rare look at the months before the Air France hijacking and show that Israeli leaders had already dealt with a similar terror threat against an El Al flight heading to Nairobi.
According to the newly released protocol from March 19, 1976, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin briefed lawmakers on a highly secret operation later nicknamed “Operation Rashes.” The Shin Bet and the Mossad had helped stop an attempt to shoot down an El Al plane carrying 140 passengers. The plot was linked to Wadie Haddad of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and involved five militants, three Palestinians and two Germans from the Baader-Meinhof group, who were arrested in Kenya at the final stage of preparations for a shoulder-launched missile attack.
Rabin told the committee that the operation required exceptional sensitivity, cooperation with Kenya, and absolute secrecy around the arrests. His warning now reads as prophetic: “My fear,” he said, was that there would be an attempt at terrorism, leverage against the Kenyans, and then pressure on Israel to hand the suspects over.
That scenario unfolded three months later, when Air France Flight 139 was hijacked to Entebbe on June 27, 1976 by Haddad’s men. Their published demands included the release of the five men arrested in Kenya, the same suspects Rabin had described to the committee. In a June 29 session, Rabin connected the two events and said he still hoped his fear was mistaken. The next day he urged lawmakers to keep the matter secret because Kenya was publicly denying the arrests and Israel feared harming ties with Nairobi or endangering the hostages.
The documents also show how uncertain the leadership was in the first days of the crisis, contradicting the idea that a military rescue was immediately on the table. Rabin said Israel could not yet reach Uganda with any meaningful presence, Justice Minister Shmuel Tamir doubted Phantoms or helicopters could get there, and Rabin replied, “To get there, yes. To come back, I do not know.” The Knesset will mark the anniversary next week with special tours, an audiovisual presentation in the historic cabinet room, seating in the plenum’s honorary gallery, copies of the newly released protocols, and a meeting with one of the Entebbe rescue fighters.
