OPENING FIRE AS THEY STORMED THE PLANE'S emergency exits and charged up the aisle, Israel's elite Sayeret Matkal commandos killed two Palestinian hijackers and overpowered the others, saving all but one hostage in a 10-minute mission hailed in Israel as a triumph of ingenuity and bravery.
In the vanguard on that spring day in 1972 was none other than current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose two brothers also served in Sayeret Matkal. But while his personal experience of hostage rescue makes him uniquely placed to take ultimate responsibility for deploying the force in one of the biggest crises in Israel's history, the challenge this legendary unit faces now is many times greater than in any of its previous daring operations if it is to try to extract at least 222 hostages who were abducted by Hamas fighters and bundled back to the Gaza Strip during an unprecedented assault this month.
"In terms of what this unit can do and can't do, this is a guy who would be completely familiar," says Doron Avital, a former Sayerat Matkal commander whose teachings remain influential in the current leadership.
"He was the prime minister for 15 years, it means he approved many of the operations of the unit, so he knows the game, no question," Avital tells Newsweek.
"But here it's a big challenge," he adds. "This is a rescue operation on no magnitude that we ever met, in the context of those hostages being in Gaza, in the context of this hidden infrastructure underneath the streets of Gaza. This is a big challenge...it's a rescue operation in the context of war."
A Legacy Written in Blood
Denne historien er fra November 03, 2023-utgaven av Newsweek US.
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Denne historien er fra November 03, 2023-utgaven av Newsweek US.
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Can Alternative Therapies Treat Cancer?
Doctor and breast cancer survivor Liz O'Riordan addresses misinformation around managing the disease
Falling for Romance
A new book, Nora Ephron at the Movies, celebrates the writer/director best known for her iconic rom-coms and strong female characters
Cracking the Norse Code
Walrus DNA has shown that Vikings were likely the first to have encountered Indigenous North Americans
Monumental Shift
The discovery of 165-million-year-old crystals Easter Island has upended the longheld notion of how the Earth's \"conveyor belt\" moves
'OUR FOREIGN POLICY AND DOMESTIC REFORMS ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN'
It is a well-known fact across the globe that the North Korean regime is irrational and unpredictable, but we have been consistent in strengthening our defense posture against the threat from North Korea since the Korean War, and I believe that their conventional capability is much inferior to that of the Korean military.
'They Read My Eulogy As I Lay in an Open Grave'
Like Paris Hilton, Natasia Pelowski claims she was subjected to abuse at a teenage therapy program
Russian Economy Faces 'Burnout
Vladimir Putin admits difficulties” as the country’s key interest rate reaches a historic high
China's 'Silent Chemical War'
The U.S. must investigate Beijing's role in the manufacturing of fentanyl that is killing Americans, says one mom whose daughter died after accidentally taking the illicit substance
HARSH HEADWINDS
President Yoon Suk Yeol's BATTLE to reform a South Korea beset with structural problems under the specter of an increasingly aggressive neighbor to THE NORTH
Bridget Everett
BRIDGET EVERETT NEVER THOUGHT SHE'D BE THE LEAD OF A TV SHOW. \"I come from the downtown world in New York, a cabaret singer, and these things just don't happen, you don't find yourself with three seasons of HBO.
