Yonatan Netanyahu, Israeli colonel (b. 1946)
Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu (Hebrew: יונתן נתניהו; March 13, 1946 – July 4, 1976) was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer who commanded the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal during Operation Entebbe, an operation to rescue hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976. The mission was successful, with 102 of the 106 hostages rescued, but Netanyahu was killed in action—the only IDF fatality during the operation.
The eldest son of the Israeli professor Benzion Netanyahu, Yonatan was born in New York City and spent much of his youth in the United States, where he attended high school. After serving in the IDF during the Six-Day War of 1967, he briefly attended Harvard University before transferring to Jerusalem's Hebrew University in 1968; soon thereafter he left his studies and returned to the IDF. He joined Sayeret Matkal in the early 1970s and was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service for his conduct in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. After his death Operation Entebbe was renamed "Operation Yonatan" in his honour.Netanyahu's younger brother, Benjamin Netanyahu, was Prime Minister of Israel from 1996 until 1999 and again from 2009 until 2021. Both Benjamin and their younger brother, Iddo Netanyahu, served in Sayeret Matkal.