Operation Entebbe was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by the Special Forces of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976. A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked, by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells, and flown to Entebbe, near Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Shortly after landing, all non-Israeli passengers, except one French citizen, were released.

The IDF acted on intelligence provided by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. In the wake of the hijacking and with the hijackers threatening to kill the hostages if their prisoner release demands were not met, the rescue operation was planned. These plans included preparation for armed resistance from Ugandan military troops.

The operation took place at night, as Israeli transport planes carried 100 commandos over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) to Uganda for the rescue operation. The operation, which took a week of planning, lasted 90 minutes and 102 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one, the commander, Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, was killed. All the hijackers, three hostages and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed, and thirty Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of Uganda's air force were destroyed. 24 hours later, a fourth Israeli hostage was killed by Ugandan army officers at a nearby hospital.

Entebbe is a major town in Central Uganda. Located on a Lake Victoria peninsula, the town was at one time, the seat of government for the Protectorate of Uganda, prior to Independence in 1962. Entebbe is the location of Entebbe International Airport, Uganda's largest commercial and military airport, best known for the dramatic rescue of 100 hostages kidnapped by the resistance group of the PFLP and Revolutionary Cells (RZ) organizations. Entebbe is also the location of State House, the official office and residence of the President of Uganda.

Entebbe sits on the northern shores of Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake. Entebbe lies at 00.04N, 32.465E. It is situated in Wakiso District, approximately 37 kilometres (23 mi), southwest of Kampala, Uganda's largest city and capital.

The Municipality is located on a peninsula into Lake Victoria covering a total area of 56.2 square kilometres (21.7 sq mi), out of which 20 square kilometres (7.7 sq mi) is water.

During the 2002 national census, Entebbe's population was estimated at 55,086 people. In 2008, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), estimated the population of the town at 70,200. In 2011, UBOS estimated the population of Entebbe at approximately 79,700.

Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch (28 September 1916 – 14 January 1977) was a British-born Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film Network, which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. He was the first of two people to win a posthumous Academy Award in an acting category; the other was fellow Australian Heath Ledger.

Finch was born as Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch in London to Alicia Gladys Fisher. At the time, Alicia was married to George Finch. George Finch was born in New South Wales, Australia, but was educated in Paris and Zurich. He was a research chemist when he moved to England in 1912 and later served during the first World War with the Royal Army Ordnance Depot and the Royal Field Artillery. In 1915, at Portsmouth, in Hampshire, George married Alicia Fisher, the daughter of a Kent barrister. However, George Finch was not Peter Finch's biological father. He learned only in his mid-40s that his biological father was Wentworth Edward Dallas "Jock" Campbell, an Indian Army officer, whose adultery with Finch's mother was the cause of George and Alice's divorce, when Peter was two years old. Alicia Finch married "Jock" Campbell in 1922.