News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) A memorial service was held Sunday at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem for Lieutenant Colonel Yoni Netanyahu, the brother of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was killed in the July 4, 1976 rescue in Entebbe, Uganda of Israeli and other Jewish passengers from a hijacked Air France flight. The prime minister took part, as did Defense Minister Ehud Barak, officers and friends. The rescue operation was eventually renamed "Operation Yoni." The Hebrew date of the sixth of Tammuz was on Shabbat.

Shai Gross, a hostage who was a child at the time, said at the memorial, "For us you were a freer of the imprisoned [a description of G-d in daily prayers -ed.], you were sent to us from heaven and, to your credit, we continued the way of the Jewish people." He continued, "I named my son after you Yoni. You freed me. Who will free [abducted Israeli soldier Gilad] Shalit?"

Waiting outside the cemetery was the prime minister's brother-in-law, Dr. Hagai ben-Artzi, who carried a sign saying, "Yoni Netanyahu sacrificed his soul so that the State of Israel would not release terrorists." Ben Artzi told Arutz 7 that the prime minister was "not faithful to Yoni's heritage or his own," and that he "must declare that we don't release terrorists."