Upon being drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces for his obligatory military service, Yoni volunteered for the paratroopers. He proved to be a superb soldier, and excelled in all the various courses. He was sent to Officers’ Training School, from which he graduated first in his class. Yoni then became a platoon commander in the paratroopers.
In 1967, dramatic events were unfolding in the Middle East. When war finally broke out on June 5, Yoni took part in the fierce and pivotal battle of Um Katef in the Sinai. A few days later he participated in battles on the Golan Heights. He was wounded in his arm.
In the summer of 1972, Yoni was promoted to deputy commander of Sayeret Matkal. Only two of the operations he took part in, during that period of service in the Unit, can be disclosed. One occurred in the summer of 1972, when Yoni commanded the hijacking from Lebanon of a group of high-ranking Syrian Officers. These officers were subsequently exchanged for Israeli pilots languishing in the Syrian jail. The other was the raid on the PLO leaders in Beirut, in the spring of 1973.
With the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War on October 6, 1973. Yoni immediately returned to his old unit, Sayeret Matkal, and was put in charge of a force that fought on the Golan Heights. The most noted of the battles Yoni commanded during the war was the one against a Syrian commando force. The Syrians landed by helicopter near the main command-post of the Israeli army on the Golan Heights, intent apparently on capturing it. Upon learning of the landing, Yoni moved swiftly with his available troops and engaged the Syrians. A second operation of Yoni during that war was the rescue of Lt. Col. Yossi Ben Hanan, a brigade commander of the armored corps, who was lying wounded behind enemy lines. Shortly after the Yom Kippur War, Yoni joined the armored brigade. In June 1975, Yoni left his armored brigade to become commander of Sayeret Matkal. During his year of command there, he was in charge of many operations. Of these, all but one remain secret –the raid on Entebbe, where he met his death. On June 27 an Air France airliner was hijacked over Europe by Arab and German gunmen. The plane eventually landed in Entebbe, Uganda, where President Idi Amin was waiting for the terrorists and received them with open arms. The 106 hostages were kept captive at the Old Terminal of the Entebbe International Airport. On July 1, Yoni received orders to plan and prepare his unit for the mission to Entebbe. His unit’s part in the raid was to take over the Old Terminal complex. At the stroke of midnight, Ugandan time, on July 4, 1976, Yoni and his initial assault party of 29 men landed at Entebbe airport. During the battle, Yoni was hit in the chest and lay critically wounded outside the main hall where the hostages were held. He died at the entrance to the evacuation plane, as the hostages were being herded inside. Yoni was the only man of the rescue force to die. (Three hostages were killed during the exchange of fire and a fourth was later murdered by Idi Amin’s men.) Yoni’s body was placed inside the plane, which then took off to safety in Kenya.
Yoni was buried with full military honors in Mt. Herzl Cemetery.
(Read Yoni Netanyahu's full biography or more about the Entebbe Raid at http://www.yoni.org.il/en/biogr.php)
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