Yonatan Netanyahu

Military officer and national hero of the State of Israel (1946–1976)

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Lived 1946–1976, aged 30United States

United States Historical Figures

Wikipedia
35 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1946–1976
Aged 30
Awards
1
recognised work

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

The only Israeli soldier killed at Entebbe. He commanded the raid that freed 102 hostages from a hijacked Air France flight in Uganda, but never made it home.

Biography

About

Born in New York in 1946, the eldest son of scholar Benzion Netanyahu, Yonatan shuttled between the U.S. and Israel through his youth. He fought in the Six-Day War, tried a semester at Harvard, then cut it short and returned to the Israeli military for good. He joined Sayeret Matkal in the early 1970s and earned the Medal of Distinguished Service in the Yom Kippur War. On July 4, 1976, he led the counter-terrorist strike on Entebbe Airport after Palestinian and German militants hijacked a civilian flight and diverted it to Uganda with Idi Amin's backing. The mission rescued all but four of the…

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