Yoni Netanyahu and the Entebbe Raid

💔🕊️ He was the only Israeli soldier to die in one of the most daring rescue missions in history.

Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu was a man of letters and action. Harvard-educated, fiercely idealistic, and deeply committed to the survival of the Jewish people.

In 1976, when terrorists hijacked an Air France plane and diverted it to Entebbe, Uganda, 106 Jewish and Israeli hostages were held at gunpoint.

The world hesitated. Urged restraint, negotiation. Israel did not.

Yoni, the commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, led Operation Thunderbolt. A daring 4,000-kilometer raid into enemy territory, under cover of darkness, to rescue the hostages.

It was an impossible mission. But they did the impossible.

Yoni lead the operation from the front. The commandos stormed the terminal and rescued the hostages. The operation lasted 90 minutes. It stunned the world.

But Yoni never made it home.

He was shot in the final moments of the operation, just meters from the hostages. He was 30 years old.

His letters, later published, reveal a soul torn between poetry and war, burdened by responsibility, yet unwavering in purpose:

“I don’t see myself as a man who has given up the joys of life to fight. I see myself as a man who fights so that others may have the joys of life.”

His younger brother, Bibi Netanyahu, would go on to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Bibi credits his brother's sacrifice as what inspired him to go into politics.

For many Israelis, Yoni remains the ultimate symbol of courage, heroism, and sacrifice.