gone wrong. “Ehud,” he said finally, “Yoni’s dead. We got the hostages out

gone wrong. “Ehud,” he said finally, “Yoni’s dead. We got the hostages out. But Yoni was killed.” I sought out two other friends: Mookie and Ephraim Sneh, the Battalion 890 doctor, who had been with us at the Chinese Farm. Both were obviously torn between a sense of accomplishment in having freed the hostages and the blow of losing Yoni. I asked Ephraim to take me to the front of the plane’s huge belly to see him. He was on a stretcher, covered with a blanket. I peeled it back. Yon1’s face had lost all color. But when I touched his forehead, it seemed slighty warm, almost as if there was still a spark of life inside him. I couldn’t raise Kuti by radio, so I used the landline in the airport director’s office to phone Motta. “Yoni is dead,” I told him. “Are you sure?” he asked. I said: “Yes. P’ve seen him.” Before the transport planes began leaving for Israel, I made another call. It was to Nava. She was asleep. I told her that the operation to free the hostages had succeeded. “But Yoni has been killed.” I could hear her gasp. “Listen,” I said, “you have to go downstairs. Tell Bruria. Before some army officer shows up at her door. Or worse, because they’re not married, no one may come and she’ Il hear it on the radio. Go. Tell her. Stay with her.” At first, she seemed not so much unwilling as unable to do it. “What can I say?” I said I knew how hard it would be, but that she needed to make sure Bruria heard the news from a friend. Later, Nava told me she’d waited until daybreak, not wanting to make things worse by waking her. Then, she went downstairs. She told Bruria what had happened, stayed with her, talked with her, and held her, during those first few awful hours. I found Yoni’s death even more upsetting when I learned from Mookie and others how it had happened. As the sayeret motorcade began making its way from the Hercules to the terminal, with Mookie and Yoni in the Mercedes, two Ugandan soldiers had seen them. One of the Ugandans raised his rifle. Rather than relying on Mookie’s assurances the soldier wouldn’t actually fire, Yoni and another soldier shot him with their silenced Berettas. But they’d only wounded him. In case he managed to fire back, another soldier in the Jeep behind them killed him, with his un-silenced machine gun. Now that all surprise was gone, the commandos abandoned their vehicles and began sprinting towards the old terminal. Only seconds later, still 80 yards 176 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_011647