Netanyahu last visited Uganda in 2016, during the 40th anniversary of ‘Operation Entebbe’ that left the prime minister’s older brother, hero Yonatan Netanyahu, dead.
By World Israel News Staff
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be heading to Uganda on Monday for a one-day working meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni amid speculation that the east African country may soon be opening an embassy in Jerusalem.
“He will be here on Monday on a one-day official visit at his [Museveni] request,” Ugandan government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo said in a statement.
“He is coming with a big delegation of up to 45 people and a big press team,” he added.
According to The Jerusalem Post, citing unnamed sources within Uganda’s Evangelical Christian community, during Netanyahu’s trip the Ugandan government will announce a plan to open an embassy in Jerusalem.
However, the report says that the rumor is being denied by Ugandan Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry, Patrick Mugova.
If indeed the rumors are true, Uganda will become the third country to establish an embassy in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu’s visit comes at a time when the two countries are set to mark their 26th-year anniversary since diplomatic relations were renewed in 1994. The Israeli embassy in Uganda had closed in 1972.
Netanyahu last visited Uganda in 2016, during the 40th anniversary of “Operation Entebbe” that left the prime minister’s older brother, hero Yonatan Netanyahu, dead.
On June 27, 1976, two Palestinians and two Germans terrorists hijacked an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris during a stopover in Athens. After a brief refueling in Benghazi, Libya, the plane was flown to Entebbe.
The hijackers separated about 100 Jewish and Israeli passengers from the rest and threatened to kill them if Israel did not free dozens of Palestinian prisoners.
On July 4, 1976, Israel launched a secret rescue operation in which some 200 soldiers took part in an airborne raid on the Entebbe airport. They successfully killed the hijackers, freed nearly all the hostages and left for Israel within less than an hour.
Yonatan Netanyahu, who commanded the successful raid, was the sole Israeli military casualty. Following his death, the Israeli government renamed the mission “Operation Yonatan.”