Kennedy Hickman (N.D.) the Entebbe Raid Codenamed

¶ … Kennedy Hickman (n.d.) the Entebbe raid codenamed "operation thunderbolt" started when, on the 27th of June in 1976, a French aircraft left Tel Aviv for Paris. The craft was hijacked at Athens allegedly by the two members of Popular Front for liberation of Palestine and two others from German's Revolutionary cells. It was flown to Uganda where they were welcomed by Idi Amin. Most of the hostages were released but the Israelis, Jews and the crews were kept. The terrorists wanted all the Palestinians held in Israeli and other parts of the world released by the 1st of July. On the night of 3rd July, a rescue mission under the command of Colonel Yoni Netanyahu arrived in Entebbe rescuing more than one hundred hostages. In the process, three hostages, forty five Ugandan soldiers and Netanyahu were killed.

International coordination in counterterrorism operation

Bruce Newsome (2003) says that international coordination requires sharing of information with other agencies across the border prior to, during and after counter-terrorism operations. Failure to do this, according to Newsome, violates both local and international laws. Therefore, in this operation, Israeli was required to engage the international community through sharing of vital information concerning the operation.

International repercussions of the operation

According to Jerusalem post (2001), there were diplomatic repercussions, strengthening the fight against terrorism and viewing of the act as a heroic act as a result of the operation. During the operation, many local Ugandan soldiers and the terrorists were killed. This obviously created 'bad blood' between the two countries. On the other hand, according to Jerusalem post (2001), as a result of the success of the operation and the conferences held in honor of Netanyahu, the operation played an important role in "strengthening Western resolve in the fight against international terrorism." The rescue operation was completed within a very short time (within an hour) thus it has been viewed as a heroic act (Jerusalem post, 2001). It was a depiction of the military capability of Israeli.

Counterterrorism operations

The counterterrorism operation in Entebbe by Israeli was immediate and swift. As a result the standards of counter-terrorism operation do not apply. The terrorist group had demands that were not only touching on Israel but a number of countries across the world. This was so because the Palestinian hostages were kept both in Israel and other nations in the globe. Therefore, Israeli could not meet these demands. Israeli had to act swiftly lest the hostages in Entebbe be killed (as a deadline was given).

According to Eileen Skinnider (2004), "The present threat of international terrorism is seen as an exceptional phenomenon; it is not practicable to apply the principles of law and the rules of evidence generally recognized in the trial of criminal cases" (p. 4). This implies that it is difficult to observe the human rights in cases of terrorist attacks. Human rights are often violated as there is usually presumption of guilt, unlawful detentions, and violation of right to life among others.