Shades of Yoni Netanyahu as Yamam commander Arnon Zamora saves hostages, and becomes a household name. 

By The IDF Club

In July of 1976, Israel famously launched a mission to rescue 106 hostages that were being held by German and Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda. The story of the rescue is one that Israelis and non-Israelis alike are familiar with, and the heroic efforts of the IDF’s only casualty in the mission, Yoni Netanyahu, shine as a tragic yet inspiring note on an otherwise successful military operation. In Israel, Yoni Netanyahu is a household name (I, myself, decided to enlist in the IDF having been motivated by Yoni’s story).

On June 8th 2024, Israel did it again, launching a daring rescue mission of 4 Israeli hostages in Gaza in broad daylight.

Yamam, the Israeli Police’s most elite counter-terror unit, stormed two separate buildings under airstrike cover, taking heavy resistance from local Hamas forces. Yamam successfully extracted all 4 hostages, and got them back safely to their families. The instantly-viral bodycam footage captivated the nation, and the world, yet the victory was bittersweet; Israel had lost a precious soldier in the fighting.

Arnon Zamora was 36 years old when he set out on the mission to rescue Israeli hostages from the Nuseirat camp. He was a commander in the unit; his teammates saying that he was always the first through the door, leading the charge.

On October 7th, Arnon was fighting with his team in the kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, preventing the Hamas infiltration from rising further north into Tel Aviv and the rest of Israel. His family said he “had a heart of gold” and “saved lives with his bare hands many times”.

No mission is without its danger, without its risks. These were risks that Arnon and his team were more than willing to take for the sake of the hostages and for all of Israel.

Arnon Zamora was truly a hero of Israel, like Yoni Netanyahu, and the Israeli people will venerate him as such, forever.