Saturday afternoon, July 1976: A few hours remain before one of the most dangerous and complex operations ever performed by the Matkal commando unit. The fighters, following endless briefings, are huddled at the Air Force base next to Lod, ready for take off. But the
commander of the assault force, Muki Betser, is missing one piece of the intelligence puzzle. He knows that the success of the operation in Entebbe lies in getting an up-to-date aerial photo of the airport terminal in Uganda. But the photos he holds in his hand are five years old. The risk of encountering surprises on the ground, 1,400 kilometers from Israel, is ever present.
Only now, 30 years after the operation, Betser reveals for the first time in an interview with Ynet, the details of an aerial photo shoot that preceded the Entebbe Operation. The job in this case was done by the Mossad operatives. “On our team, there was a Mossad official called Shlomo Gal,” says Betser. “I asked him: Shlomo, can you get a plane over there to take some photos? And he tells me – yes.”
The defense establishment was getting ready to carry out an “operation inside an operation”. Betser recounts: “We took a Mossad operative, a pilot, whose job was to carry out different photo shoots for them in all kinds of places. He flew from London to Nairobi in Kenya. At Nairobi, he rented a light airplane, flew to Entebbe – and then informed the control tower he had a technical malfunction and had to perform some aerial roundabouts in the air.”
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