Entebbe – All over again!

In the 1987 film, “Baby Boom,” the main character, J.C. Watt, played by Diane Keaton, returns to her old company where she had once worked as a high-powered businesswoman, but which she left totally defeated and humiliated. After having cleverly invented a successful product that the company wanted to market, she’s offered an enormous salary package with a bonus and use of the executive jet. It is then that she leaves the conference room, walks into the restroom, looks at herself in the mirror and excitedly declares, “I’m back.”

This is exactly the way that Israel is feeling, the day after the rescue of four hostages who were saved after a daring operation, the likes of which hasn’t happened since the 1976 Entebbe rescue mission, when 100 commandos flew a distance of 2,500 miles, to Uganda, in Israeli aircraft to rescue the 94, mostly Israeli, passengers who had been hijacked while on an Air France plane.

Yesterday’s morning raid, which began at 11 a.m., was no less courageous than the one which took place nearly 50 years ago. While the location, where the hostages were being held, was much closer, this time, the mission equally required the element of surprise as well as the knowledge, by those brave soldiers and intelligence officials, taking part in the operation, that if it came to saving the hostages’ lives, it would be at their own expense.  

Sadly, that was true in the case of 36-year-old Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora of the Yamam counterterrorism unit who was “critically wounded during the mission and succumbed to his injuries in the hospital,” leaving behind a wife and two children.

In the midst of that deep sadness, as this brave soul became a great hero, helping to save these four hostages, who have endured the worst horrors imaginable over the past eight months, the country is euphoric, feeling less victimized and sending out a strong message. We are not helpless victims who are solely reliant on the inept and corrupt negotiators of Qatar, who, along with U.S. administration leaders, have failed to move the needle to have more hostages returned since the early days in November when some 105 had been released.

Since that time, Hamas has refused to accept all offers put to them, even to the point of generously offering to halt a war that needs to be fought to the end in order to rid humanity of a vicious and brutal enemy, whose savage massacre began with Israel but whose aspirations extend much further than the Jewish homeland.

There is a wonderful sense of empowerment which comes from not feeling beholden to anyone, because yesterday taught us that we are able to make choices, decide what’s best for ourselves and execute what needs to be done in order to defend our people.  

It means that we are, indeed, back! And that was the joy that spontaneously spilled out onto the streets, beaches and most every place where the news was announced that we had finally been able to free four of our hostages who had been embedded in two separate locations at the Nuseirat refugee camp located in central Gaza.

Noa Argamani, age 25, the only woman, along with three other men, Almog Meir, age 21, Andrey Kozlov, age 27 and Shlomi Ziv, age 40 were the individuals who were blessed to be whisked away by Israeli forces as they were put onto the helicopter which flew them back to safety, all in the midst of much gunfire exchange. 

According to reports, “To prepare for the mission, Israeli forces had built models of the buildings to practice the raid and gathered intelligence in ‘multiple ways’ to ensure the operation would be successful.”

Another report stated that it had been decided to “simultaneously raid the two buildings (holding the hostages) which were about 200 meters apart, since there was the possibility that Hamas could murder the hostages after identifying the rescue operation at the other location.”

The raid, in the works for weeks, had been planned for a Saturday morning which had been determined to be the best time in order to pull off the element of surprise, unlike most similar operations which are carried out in the dead of night. 

Yet, the mission was fraught with much risk, given the fact that this was an area completely unfamiliar to Israeli ground troops. Those involved were the IDF forces, including paratroopers, armored divisions and ground forces, as well as Shin Bet security forces and Yamam special counter-terrorism police forces, all in all, a massive effort which ended in the successful return of the four.

While Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, along with others, howl over the rescue mission, which extricated our people from the clutches of evil, we are not the “criminal enemy” to whom they refer as those they are resisting. To the contrary, the ones who held and continue to hold our people hostage, who murdered, tortured, raped and brutalized innocents in a surprise invasion deserve that distinction, because up until October 7, there was relative peace.  

Gazans were permitted entrance to work in Israel, and would have been free to prosper and live well, had it not been for their terrorist government which has always held them back in order to maintain their victim status. Every obstacle put before them has been a purposeful attempt, by their leaders, to garner world sympathy while deliberately characterizing Israel as the villain.  But, at some point, everything becomes evident, and that includes undeserved Jewish hatred which has erupted over a false blaming of Gazan suffering.

All of this has been demoralizing and crushing to most Israelis, who have felt almost defenseless in their ability to clear their good name and correct a libelous narrative that has taken hold of an entire generation of young people who choose to side with terrorists rather than a democratic country which has contributed so much good to the world.

But after yesterday’s daring rescue mission, we have shown everyone to what great lengths we will go to save four precious lives. It’s not over yet, and with God’s help, perhaps we will succeed in returning all of the remaining hostages whose suffering needs to come to an end – a stark difference from the purposely prolonged suffering of those whose leaders simply don’t care about them!