Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly thanked Uganda for erecting a statue in honour of his late older brother, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu, at the Old Entebbe Airport terminal where he was killed during the 1976 hostage-rescue operation.

Netanyahu made the unusual personal reference on Thursday while addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York, nearly 50 years after his brother died leading the Israeli assault on Entebbe Airport.

"Yoni led his brave soldiers to the heart of Africa. Miraculously, they rescued 103 Jewish hostages and brought them all home," Netanyahu said.

"My brother, the commander of the storming party, was the only soldier killed in this mission. I want to thank Uganda again for recently erecting a statue of Yoni in the place where he fell."

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The reference came as Netanyahu delivered a combative defence of Israel's military actions and faced a walkout by scores of delegates as he took the podium. He subsequently invoked Yoni's words as he declared that Israel would continue fighting.

The memorial was unveiled on August 1, 2026, by Uganda's Chief of Defence Forces, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, at the old Entebbe Airport terminal, the historic site of the 1976 hostage rescue.

The bronze statue depicts Yoni Netanyahu carrying an assault rifle. It was commissioned by Gen Muhoozi and unveiled as Uganda and Israel marked 50 years since the operation that made Entebbe internationally synonymous with hostage rescue.

The statue was created by Israeli artist Itay Zalait, who began his military service in the elite Israeli unit once commanded by Yoni.

At the unveiling, Gen Muhoozi described Yoni's leadership and death as symbols of courage, duty and selfless service. He also said the monument was intended to preserve the memory of the events while reflecting the relationship that has developed between Uganda and Israel.

The ceremony also acknowledged the civilian hostages who died during the crisis, as well as Ugandan soldiers killed during the Israeli raid.

Gen Muhoozi distinguished the events of 1976 from present-day Uganda, saying the operation occurred under Idi Amin's government, which he described as a dictatorship that did not represent today's Uganda.

The monument therefore occupies an unusual place in Uganda's history: it commemorates an Israeli military commander on Ugandan soil who was killed during an operation carried out against a government that had allowed the hijackers to use Entebbe Airport.

The events began on June 27, 1976, when Air France Flight 139, travelling from Tel Aviv to Paris via Athens, was hijacked shortly after leaving Athens.

Four hijackers -- two Palestinians linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and two Germans associated with the Baader-Meinhof group -- forced the aircraft to fly to Entebbe, where the hostages were held with the assistance of Ugandan forces under President Idi Amin. Jewish and Israeli passengers were separated from the other hostages after the aircraft arrived.

The hijackers demanded the release of imprisoned militants and threatened to kill the hostages if their demands were not met.

After days of negotiations and military preparations, Israel launched the rescue mission on the night of July 3-4, 1976. Israeli commandos flew thousands of kilometres to Uganda and stormed the old terminal at Entebbe.

Yoni Netanyahu, then a lieutenant colonel and commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, led the assault force. The Israeli commandos killed the hijackers and began evacuating the hostages.

The operation lasted less than an hour. More than 100 hostages were rescued, but Yoni was shot and killed during the assault. He was the only Israeli soldier killed in the operation. The raid was subsequently renamed Operation Yonatan in his honour.

Three hostages were also killed during the operation, while a fourth, Dora Bloch, had been taken to a Kampala hospital before the raid and was subsequently killed by Ugandan security forces.

Ugandan soldiers were also killed in the fighting, while the operation became one of the most famous long-range hostage-rescue missions in modern military history.

For decades, the Entebbe raid remained one of the most politically sensitive episodes in Uganda-Israel relations. The Israeli operation was conducted without the consent of the Ugandan government and humiliated Amin's regime.

Fifty years later, however, the location where Yoni Netanyahu was killed has become the site of a Ugandan memorial to him.

At the August unveiling, Ugandan officials framed the monument as part of a broader rapprochement between the two countries, citing cooperation in security and other areas. Israeli representatives at the ceremony similarly described it as a symbol of the relationship between Uganda and Israel.

Netanyahu's decision to single out Uganda during his UN speech has now given the memorial a much larger international audience.

For the Israeli prime minister, the statue carries a deeply personal significance: it stands at the precise place where his elder brother, aged 30, was killed while commanding the rescue of hostages half a century ago.

For Uganda, it represents a striking transformation in the meaning attached to a site that once symbolised the country's most controversial international military episode.

The Old Entebbe terminal, where the gunfire of July 4, 1976 once marked a confrontation between Israeli commandos, hijackers and Ugandan forces, now carries a permanent monument to the Israeli commander who died there.