Benjamin Netanyahu and his brother received Yoni Netanayahu’s personal effects
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his brother Dr Ido Netanyahu have received personal items belonging to their brother, the late Yoni Netanyahu.
Dr Ido and Benjamin Netanyahu receive their brother’s personal effects in the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem. Pic: Amos Ben-Gershom
Yosef Shemesh had kept the items since he and Yoni served together in the Armored Corps 71st Battalion on the Golan Heights.
Among the items which the Prime Minister and his brother received were Yoni’s commando knife, the Passover Haggadah that Yoni read from, and which he mentions in his letters, his personal jumpsuit, books that he had given to Yosef Shemesh, a unit shirt, sleeping bag, gloves and compass.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Yosef was one of Yoni’s soldiers in the Armored Corps 71st Battalion on the Golan Heights after the Yom Kippur War. Since then he has kept these personal items of Yoni’s and has brought them to us now. My brother Ido and I are very impressed. We recognize some of these items. This commando knife was in the unit. We recognize Yoni’s books. Here is the Haggadah, ahead of Passover, that he used at the seder he held for his soldiers. This is a very moving memento from the past. I am very grateful, thank you.”
Dr Ido Netanyahu added: “It is very moving after so many years to see these things, especially the Haggadah that Yoni wrote about in his letters. He wrote about the special seder he held while in the battalion in a very special and very moving letter.”
Yoni Netanyahu was killed during the raid on Entebbe in 1976 during which Israeli commandos under his leadership rescued 102 passengers on an Air France plane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists.
