On November 1, 1972, Lieutenant Benjamin Netanyahu, a member of Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s Special Forces, had the privilege to meet the President of Israeli Zalman Shazar.
Netanyahu was one of the elite soldiers who participated in the successful Sabena Airlines Flight 751 hostage rescue operation (1) on May 9, 1972.
The future Prime Minister of Israel was wounded in the operation.
(1) Sabena Flight 571 was a scheduled passenger flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv operated by the Belgian national airline,Sabena. On 8 May 1972 a Boeing 707 passenger aircraft operating that service, captained by English pilot Reginald Levy, DFC, was hijacked by four terrorists from the Black September organization and landed at Lod Airport (later Ben Gurion International Airport), which was actually the scheduled destination.
The attack was planned by Ali Hassan Salameh and carried out by a group of two men and two women, armed with pistols, led by Ali Taha Twenty minutes out of Vienna, the hijackers rushed the cockpit. "As you can see," Captain Levy told the 90 passengers, "we have friends aboard." While the passengers and the captain waited, hoping that something would happen and lead to their safety, Reginald Levy talked about everything "from navigation to sex" with the terrorists. Unbeknownst to the terrorists, Levy's wife was a passenger on the plane.
Soon after the hijacking, the hijackers separated Jewish hostages from non-Jews and sent them to the back of the aircraft. The hijackers demanded the release of 315 convicted Palestinian terrorists who were imprisoned in Israel, and threatened to blow up the airplane with its passengers. Seeing the terrorists crying and hugging each other goodbye, Reginald Levy managed to send a message and ask for help to be delivered as soon as possible. The security minister Moshe Dayan conducted negotiations with the terrorists while also making preparations for a rescue operation, code-named "Operation Isotope."
On 9 May 1972 at 4:00 p.m. the rescue operation began: a team of 16 Sayeret Matkal commandos, led by Ehud Barak and including Benjamin Netanyahu, both future Israeli Prime Ministers, approached the airplane. The commandos were disguised as airplane technicians in white overalls and were able to convince the terrorists that the aircraft needed repair. The commandos stormed the aircraft and took control of the plane in ten minutes, killing both male hijackers and capturing the two women. All the passengers were rescued. Three of the passengers were wounded, one of whom eventually died from her wounds. Netanyahu was wounded during the rescue, presumably by friendly fire. The two female surviving terrorists were eventually sentenced to life imprisonment, but were freed as part of a prisoner exchange after the 1982 Lebanon War.
WIKIPEDIA TO THE RESCUE...for those short of memory RAM.....lol
and that is history....no kidding...no chicken shit.....lol
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