Benny Peled

 ( 1928 Births ) 

Benny Peled (; April 18, 1928 – July 13, 2002) was the commander of the Israeli Air Force during the Yom Kippur War and Operation Entebbe. He retired with the rank of Aluf (major general).

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Biography and career He was born Binyamin Weidenfeld in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine, and Hebraized his name to Peled. His father, Arie Weidenfeld, was a member of a family who came to Israel during the First Aliyah from Romania and settled in Rosh Pinna. His father worked in the public works department of the British mandate government and was responsible, among other things, for building airfields. His mother, Yona Weidenfeld (né Gurfinkel), came from Poland in 1925. Peled was the eldest son and had a younger brother and sister.

Peled studied in Gymnasia Herzelia and his teachers included Shaul Tchernichovsky, Yehuda Burla and Zvi Nishri, who educated him in the spirit of Zionism and democracy. After a brief term serving in the Jewish Settlement Police as a teenager, he started as a mechanic in the beginnings of the Israeli Air Force. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he had assembled the first Messerschmitt Bf 109 which had arrived in Israel dismantled.

He then became a pilot and fought in the Independence war.

After the war, he was one of the pioneers of the jet age in the IAF. He commanded the first Gloster Meteor, Dassault Ouragan and Mystère squadrons. In 1956 Peled participated in Suez Crisis, the Suez or Sinai campaign, in which his Mystere jet was shot down by Egyptian anti-aircraft fire and he became the first Israeli pilot to use an ejector seat. He was rescued by an IAF Piper light aircraft.

Peled was a base commander during the 1967 Six-Day War. He became commander of the IAF in 1973 when he was 45 years old. In that capacity he led the Israeli Air Force in the Yom Kippur War, successfully overcoming early setbacks. In July 1976 he planned and executed the air component of Operation Entebbe, the planned rescue of hostages held by terrorist hijackers in Entebbe, Uganda.

In 1978, Peled became the president of Elbit Systems, a position he held until 1985.

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In popular culture Peled was played by John Saxon in the film Raid on Entebbe (1977).

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Death In July 13, 2002 Peled died at his home in Ramat HaSharon from a severe lung disease caused by smoking. On his last day, he said goodbye to his family and made a dying wish, asking that upon his death they would take the bell which he had received for his service as the commander of the Air Force, go outside, and announce to the world, while ringing the bell, "A crazy man who thought that the Jews were capable of establishing a state had just died."

He was buried in the military section of the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery.

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