When Entebbe captive Rabbi Nachum Dahan met rescuer and former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, the past and present converged into one dark tunnel

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Mishpacha archives

They look like they probably have little in common.

One is a French ben Torah from Bnei Brak named Rabbi Nachum Dahan, and the other is Tamir Pardo, former chief of the Israeli Mossad.

But close to 50 years ago, their paths indeed crossed in the heart of Africa, in a room filled with ruthless terrorists and petrified hostages. Pardo was a young communications officer for the elite Sayeret Matkal unit and mission leader Yoni Netanyahu’s radio operator during the famed Entebbe rescue in July of 1976; Dahan was a passenger on the hijacked Air France plane, held captive, tortured, and nearly killed by his captors until he and 100 others were spirited back to Eretz Yisrael by Pardo and his colleagues.

This is an emotional reunion, especially for Pardo. After the rescue planes returned to Israel, he’d had no personal contact with the hostages over the decades — he was soon afterward recruited by the Mossad and spent the next 30 years involved in secret international missions, until he was appointed to a five-year stint as director of the lauded spy agency in 2011.

There is a chilling current dimension to this encounter, as dozens of the 133 remaining Israeli captives — many no longer alive — have been languishing for months in the tunnels under Gaza. Somehow, the collective psyche of the nation is still fantasizing about another rescue — could Entebbe happen again in 2024?

“Since October 7, I’ve been feeling awful,” Rabbi Dahan says. “I find myself waking up at night from nightmares. I remember the brutality of my captors, and I only went through it for a week.”

Rabbi Dahan shares his story with Tamir Pardo, part of the rescue team to whom he owes his life. For Pardo, it’s a flashback to younger, more daring days when his team knew they had to move forward with the mission yet felt its success was a roll of the dice.