Operation Entebbe, also known as the Entebbe incident and sometimes the Entebbe Raid, was a rescue mission performed by Sayeret Matkal (the Israeli elite special forces) to free hostages held on Air France Flight 139 at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. It took place on the night of July 3 and early morning of July 4, 1976. It was planned secretly and carried out against the Ugandan government, whose leader Idi Amin supported the hostage takers. One Israeli soldier, 45 Ugandan soldiers, six hijackers, and three hostages were killed in the action; 100 hostages were freed. The operation was called Operation Thunderbolt (or Operation Thunderball) by the Israeli military operatives who planned and carried it out. It was retroactively renamed Operation Yonatan after the raid commander, Colonel Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, the only Israeli soldier to die in the raid and the elder brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, who would later become Israel's Prime Minister.