Israel marks Memorial Day for soldiers and terror victims

Israel today observed a two-minute silence to commemorate the 23,447 IDF soldiers and civilian terror victims killed since 1860 as the Jeweish state marked the Memorial Day with ceremonies and events across the nation.
Traffic came to a standstill as motorists stopped and pedestrians suspended their walk on sideways when a siren rang out at 11 am in honour of the dead.
The Memorial Day commemoratingthe terror victims since 1860 - the year when the Jewish community in the Holy land first moved outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem - began at 8 PM yesterday with the first siren sounded across Israel.

Those who died in the service of the country include Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers, members of the Shin Bet internal security service, the Mossad, the Israel Police, the Prisons Service and those who died while serving in the pre-state underground militias and the Jewish Brigade in the British Army.
The number of civilians who have been killed in "hostile acts" since the end of the War of Independence stands at 2,576, the National Insurance Institute said.
Sixty eight Israelis have been added to the list of the fallen and 31 civilians have died as a result of terrorist attacks since the last Memorial day events last year.

The number of bereaved families, including parents, widows and orphans, in Israel now number at 16,307, said the Defence Ministry.

Some of those included in the official Defence Ministry count died as a result of accidents or disease while serving.
Disabled veterans who later died of their injuries are also included in the count.
"For over sixty-eight years we have been fighting the same war, the war for our independence," President Reuven Rivlin said at a ceremony at the Western Wall yesterday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to his brother, Yonatan, who died in the Entebbe operation in 1976, saying, "There's no one who hasn't lost a son, brother, father, husband, friend, daughter - there's no one who doesn't cry out 'why?'"

"I can testify that I asked exactly the same question when my brother fell. In time, I understood that this question should be asked with a slight change: 'What for?' For what purpose? And what is the significance of the price that was paid? Our sons and daughters embarked on a divine mission to establish the State of Israel and to ensure its future," Netanyahu emphasised.
A torch lighting ceremony will be held at Mount Herzl, signalling the end of Memorial Day and the beginning of the celebrations of Independence Day.
More than 1.5 million Israelis are expected to visit Israel's 52 military and other cemeteries today.