Operation Thunderbolt: Flight 139 and the Raid on Entebbe Airport, the Most Audacious Hostage Rescue Mission in History - Softcover

"A brilliant, breathless account that reads like the plot of an action movie, switching between events in parts of the world as the drama unfolds... David's book is a good reminder that our own War on Terror has deep roots."--The Sunday Telegraph


"It's a brilliantly orchestrated book, wonderfully rich in detail, but at the same time roaring along at a heart-thumping pace... I embarked on this book as someone not particularly interested in the Middle East, or in adventure tales of soldiers in action; I finished it in a state of high tension, buzzing through the pages in the need to know what happened next."--Mail On Sunday


"For the first time in my reading life I felt physically thrilled by a book... Wonderful."--Literary Review


"Will introduce a new generation to an extraordinary story... Brilliantly told."
--Jewish Chronicle


"This book is an enthralling, minute-by-minute retelling of the hijack and the dramatic rescue using new sources and material."--Max Hastings, author of Inferno

"Totally thrilling, totally poignant. Bringing the greatest special forces operation of modern times blazingly to life, David's book, full of new revelations, written with the excitement of an action movie, the authority of a historian, is great drama, superb storytelling--and yet tells us much about the Middle East today."--Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem


"David paces the narrative effectively, cutting back and forth among Entebbe, Tel Aviv, and Israeli military establishments with occasional looks at events in other world capitals. With high tension and as many plot twists as any fictional thriller, this book is hard to put down."--Kirkus (starred review)


"An excellent account of the planning and execution of a successful high-risk operation."--Publisher's Weekly


"David, author of numerous military histories such as Churchill's Sacrifice of the Highland Division, provides a minute-by-minute account of the entire event, focusing on the political maneuvering and the purely military operation, in excruciating detail... A definitive history of the Entebbe operation, likely to be popular among readers of military and terrorism works."--Library Journal


USA Today "New and Noteworthy"
Vanity Fair "Hot Type" pick
"Book of the Year": The Spectator Magazine, BBC History Magazine, The Mail on Sunday
"Best History Books of 2015": Amazon UK

*By the historical consultant to the major motion picture Seven Days in Entebbe*
The definitive account of one of the greatest Special Forces missions ever, the Raid of Entebbe, by acclaimed military historian Saul David.
On June 27, 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by a group of Arab and German terrorists who demanded the release of 53 terrorists. The plane was forced to divert to Entebbe, in Uganda--ruled by the murderous despot Idi Amin, who had no interest in intervening.
Days later, Israeli commandos disguised as Ugandan soldiers assaulted the airport terminal, killed all the terrorists, and rescued all the hostages but three who were killed in the crossfire. The assault force suffered just one fatality: its commander, Yoni Netanyahu (brother of Israel's current Prime Minister.) Three of the country's greatest leaders: Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin planned and pulled off one of the most astonishing military operations in history.