Herzog, Netanyahu attend memorial for Yoni Netanyahu

“There is no day that I don’t think about him or remember him,” former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday at the annual memorial ceremony on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, marking the 45th anniversary, by the Hebrew calendar, of his brother Yoni’s death during the Entebbe Airport hostage rescue mission in 1976.

 

 

Participants at the memorial service included members of the former Trump administration, United States ambassador David Friedman and secretary of the treasury Steven Mnuchin.

 

Incoming President Isaac Herzog eulogized Yoni as “a national, ‘biblical,’ hero.”

 

“In the 45 years since, Yoni has been engraved as a soldier from whom we can learn about courage and bravery,” Herzog said. “May the memories of him bring inspiration.”

 

He also quoted his father, Chaim, who was in the United States during the raid and recalled how the rescue operation on July 3-4 “stole” US Independence Day headlines. He noticed the Entebbe story on the cover of The New York Times.

 

“I realized that recognition of Israel had never been higher than at that moment,” his father said.

 

Netanyahu was shot in the back from a watchtower by a Ugandan soldier after leading the rescue of mostly Israeli passengers of a plane hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists to Uganda.

 

He was born in New York in March 1946 and first enlisted in the IDF in 1963 with the Paratroopers Brigade. He fought in the Six Day War and was a commander in the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit during the Yom Kippur War.

 

Herzog quoted stories about Yoni Netanyahu’s leadership and bravery in Syria during the Yom Kippur War. “[Netanyahu] did everything to protect the Jewish homeland,” Herzog said.