The Entebbe raid, also known as Operation Entebbe and officially codenamed Operation Thunderbolt, was a 3 July 1976 Israeli counter-terrorist mission in Uganda. It was launched in response to the hijacking of an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris by members of the PFLP-EO and the German Revolutionary Cells, who diverted the aircraft to Entebbe International Airport with the backing of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.