27 Facts About Yonatan Netanyahu

Yonatan Netanyahu was an Israeli military officer who commanded Sayeret Matkal during the Entebbe raid.

The eldest son of the Israeli professor Benzion Netanyahu and brother of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Yonatan was born in New York City and spent much of his youth in the United States, where he attended high school.

Yonatan Netanyahu joined Sayeret Matkal in the early 1970s and was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service for his conduct in the Yom Kippur War.

Yonatan Netanyahu was born in New York City, the eldest son of Tzila and Benzion Netanyahu, a professor emeritus of history at Cornell University.

Yonatan Netanyahu's mother had been born in Petah Tikva, in what is Israel, which was then in the Ottoman Empire's Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, while his father was born in Warsaw and immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1920.

Yonatan Netanyahu was named after his paternal grandfather, rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky, and Colonel John Henry Patterson, who formerly commanded the Jewish Legion and attended his circumcision.

Yonatan Netanyahu's family returned to the newly independent state of Israel in 1949 when he was two and settled in Jerusalem.

Yonatan Netanyahu was a classmate of Baseball Hall of Fame member Reggie Jackson.

Yonatan Netanyahu joined the Paratroopers Brigade and fought in the Six-Day War.

Yonatan Netanyahu married his long-time girlfriend Tirza "Tuti" Goodman on August 17,1967.

Shortly after their wedding, they flew to the US, where Yonatan Netanyahu enrolled at Harvard University.

Yonatan Netanyahu took classes in philosophy and mathematics, excelling in both, and was on the Dean's List at the end of his first year.

Yonatan Netanyahu was living with his girlfriend of two years, Bruria, at the time of his death.

Yonatan Netanyahu volunteered to serve in the Paratroopers Brigade, and excelled in the Officer Training Course.

Yonatan Netanyahu was eventually given command of a paratroopers company.

Yonatan Netanyahu then volunteered to serve as an armor commander, due to the heavy casualties inflicted on the Israeli Armored Corps during the war, with a disproportionate number of these in the officer ranks.

Yonatan Netanyahu excelled in Tank Officers course, and was given command of the Barak Armored Brigade, which had been shattered during the war.

Yonatan Netanyahu turned his brigade into the leading military unit in the Golan Heights.

Yonatan Netanyahu was killed in action on July 4,1976, while commanding the rescue mission during Operation Entebbe.

Yonatan Netanyahu was the only Israeli soldier killed during the raid.

The commonly accepted version of his death is that Yonatan Netanyahu fired on Ugandan soldiers, and was shot in response by a Ugandan soldier from the airport's control tower.

Yonatan Netanyahu's family refused to accept this verdict, and insisted instead that he was killed by the German commanding the hijackers.

Yonatan Netanyahu was shot outside the building being stormed, and soon died in the arms of Efraim Sneh, commander of the mission's medical unit.

Author Herman Wouk wrote that Yonatan Netanyahu was already a legend in Israel even before his death at the age of 30.

Yonatan Netanyahu was a taciturn philosopher-soldier of terrific endurance, a hard-fibered, charismatic young leader, a magnificent fighting man.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Yonatan Netanyahu said his own "hard line against all terrorists" came as a result of the death of his brother.

Yonatan Netanyahu's father commented in 1977 that Yoni would have been disappointed with the West's reactions against terrorism.