History of the Jews in Uganda

[6] The offer was first made by British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to Theodore Herzl's Zionist group in 1903.

[7] The offer was a response to pogroms against the Jews in Russia, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.

Although Israel had previously supplied Uganda with arms, in 1972 Idi Amin, enraged over Israel's refusal to supply Uganda with jets for a war with neighboring Tanzania, expelled Israeli military advisers and turned to Libya and the Soviet Union for support.

[1] In the documentary film General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, he discussed his plans for war against Israel, using paratroops, bombers and suicide squadrons.

A fourth hostage, 75-year-old Dora Bloch, who had been taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala prior to the rescue operation, was subsequently murdered in reprisal.

[13] A week earlier, on June 27, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by Palestinian revolutionaries and supporters and flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda.

[16] Dora Bloch, a 75-year-old British Jewish immigrant, was taken to Mulago Hospital in Kampala, and was murdered by the Ugandan government, as were some of her doctors and nurses for apparently trying to intervene.

Mrs Bloch had been shot and her body dumped in the trunk of a car which had Ugandan intelligence services number plates.

Bloch's remains were recovered near a sugar plantation 20 miles (32 km) east of Kampala in 1979,[16] after the Ugandan–Tanzanian War led to the end of Amin's rule.

We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom.