Israel: ‘Idi Amin car’ reaches airport to disrupt PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Germany visit
Israeli army veterans are participating in a large demonstration at Ben-Gurion Airport to prevent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from leaving for Germany to a state-visit scheduled on Thursday.
A convoy of former hostages and members of the Israeli army who participated in the Entebbe Operation in Uganda in 1976 arrived to demonstrate at the airport against Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul.
Benny Davidson, who was 13 years old when he and the other passengers on board were taken hostage in the 1976 hijack, stated at the protest site on Wednesday that “there needs to be more than those fighters in Entebbe; we need tens, hundreds, or millions to make it clear that civil war is out of the question,” reported Israeli newspaper.
An old black Mercedes led the convoy. It was a reference to the then-Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s official car, a replica of which the Israeli commandos used to reach the hijacked plane.
Operation Entebbe was initiated after German and Palestinian hijackers took control of an Air France jet from Tel Aviv for Paris. The hijackers diverted the plane to Entebbe, the main airport of Uganda.
They presented their demands to Israel for the release of a sizable number of Palestinian detainees in exchange for the release of the 247 hostages.
The Israeli mission involved flying Hercules aircraft to Uganda underneath the radar’s detection and donning Ugandan military uniform. They also flew an exact copy of Amin’s vehicle as a decoy to the terrorists. A total of 248 captives, primarily Israeli and Jewish, were freed.
The operation resulted in the deaths of four civilians and one Israeli soldier, including Yoni Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother. On Thursday, there will be another day of nationwide protests against the government’s judicial coup, called “The day of escalating resistance.”
The largest street protests in Israel’s history, according to organisers, took place on Saturday night when hundreds of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the government’s judicial plans. However, Netanyahu says that the adjustments would limit the influence of courts and will rebalance the arms of government.
In recent months, there has been a noticeably increased level of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
