2021's War Memorial Day

The Jerusalem Post has pictures from this year's War Memorial Day (I call it that to help make distinctions between that and Holocaust Memorial Day). And the Times of Israel has the following report:

Israel came to a standstill on Wednesday morning with a two-minute memorial siren at 11 a.m. commemorating 23,928 fallen soldiers and terror victims, including 43 soldiers and civilians killed since last Memorial Day.

During the siren, traffic around the country came to an abrupt halt, as Israelis stopped driving to stand beside their cars and people at home bowed their heads in somber silence. [...]

The Wednesday morning official ceremony was joined by families of the fallen, soldiers from across the army’s units and divisions, as well as the nation’s leaders, President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, chief rabbis Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau, IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, Supreme Court chief justice Esther Hayut, Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman and Mossad head Yossi Cohen.

The prime minister delivered his main Memorial Day address at the ceremony.

“Together we stand, united and hurting, alongside all of Israel’s citizens,” said Netanyahu. “We have raised excellent sons and daughters, who for 73 years have been risking their lives to protect Israel’s independence. Seventy-three years of grief, 73 years of revival.”

“Each one of us remembers the moment when they received the news about their fallen loved ones,” added the premier, who lost his brother Yoni in Operation Entebbe in 1976. “When my brother died, I didn’t know whether and how I would get back on my feet. I felt like someone who lost an organ — a hand, a leg, a heart.”

Appearing to hint at recent tensions with Iran and the series of attacks on Tehran’s nuclear facilities and ships that have been blamed on Israel, Netanyahu added: “We should never remain complacent in the face of threats of war and annihilation by those who seek our demise.”

And that too is vital to consider.