As Israelis mark Memorial Day, PM honors troops who ‘broke the grip of our enemies’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to Israeli soldiers who “broke the suffocating grip of our enemies,” as he spoke at one of the Memorial Day ceremonies taking place across the country on Wednesday.

Israelis stood for two minutes in silence at 11 a.m. as sirens sounded nationwide, signaling the beginning of the Memorial Day events commemorating those who have fallen in decades of war, as well as victims of terror.

Some ministers attending ceremonies across the country were met with heckles by protesters.

While speaking at the state memorial ceremony for victims of terror at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heckled by protesters, who called on him to resign, while also shouting the slogan, “You are the head, you are guilty.”

“The hostages are suffering, release them!” they called out.

In his speech, Netanyahu said, “The rebirth of Israel, unfortunately, was bought with pain and blood. This is what is said in our sources, ‘In your blood, live.’ Therefore, I say in the name of our loved ones — we will bring life, we will build our country, we will defeat our enemies.”

Speaking about the atrocities of October 7, 2023, Netanyahu noted the incitement in Palestinian society, saying, “Our enemies’ children suckle this poisonous fanaticism with their mother’s milk in kindergartens, in textbooks, in religious classes, in incitement sermons, in religious rulings that preach our destruction. But we will not allow them to destroy us because our life force is stronger than their power of death and destruction.”

President Isaac Herzog also spoke at the ceremony, saying that the “Israeli covenant” forged in the blood of Israeli terror victims demands that every hostage be brought home from Gaza.

“It obligates us to support the soldiers of the IDF and all security forces — whether those performing national service, career soldiers, and reservists — and to care for those wounded in terror attacks and Israel’s wars,” he said.

“This covenant — this Israeli covenant — demands that we act in every way, with all our might, to bring all the hostages home,” he continued. “Every last one of them. The return of the hostages is the most fundamental covenant between a state and its citizens — and indeed, it is also the moral and Jewish covenant that guides our path.”

Herzog returned to the message of unity he conveyed Tuesday night at the Western Wall as Memorial Day began, and to the urgent need to calm the public discourse.

“This Israeli covenant rests on all our shoulders, in every possible sense,” the president said. “It obligates us to strengthen the bridges between us, to lower the divisions and flames of internal strife, and not to grant our enemies the gift of internal hatred.”

“We must not forget: Our enemies do not distinguish between the blood of soldiers and civilians, between the blood of the elderly and children, women and men,” he added.

נאום נשיא המדינה בטקס האזכרה הממלכתי לחללי פעולות האיבה בארץ ובחו”ל >> pic.twitter.com/k1OThqSd2t

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— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) April 30, 2025

Earlier at the state ceremony for fallen soldiers at Mount Herzl, Netanyahu said Israel’s soldiers “are determined to bring to account those who carried out acts of slaughter and atrocities.”

“From crumbling Rafah to the lofty peak of Mount Hermon — our sons and daughters are not willing to excuse what the monsters who attacked us have done,” he said, referring to the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of southern Israel and the ensuing attacks by Iranian proxies.

“They are endangering themselves in order to create the conditions for bringing back all of our hostages, and for victory over our enemies,” the prime minister said of the soldiers.

“We all grieve and we all miss our loved ones, as one family said: For us, the phrase ‘grief-stricken’ is not a cliché, we feel it in every cell of our bodies. This is exactly what King David said 3,000 years ago when he was grieving over the death of his son.

“Thanks to the heroism of our soldiers, we broke the suffocating grip of our enemies. We did this in the south, in the north, in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], and also on other fronts. The strong connection to the homeland gives rise to even more strength, a belief in the righteousness of the path,” he said.

Also speaking at Mount Herzl, Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to return the hostages from Gaza and achieve a “clear victory” over Hamas.

In his speech at the ceremony, reading the names of the fallen, Katz highlighted Arnon Zmora, a police counter-terror officer killed during an operation in which four captives were rescued from central Gaza last year.

“Arnon sacrificed his life to free our hostages, and by virtue of this mission and this sacred commitment, even at these very hours, IDF fighters in the Gaza Strip are working to bring home all the kidnapped men and women, both the living and the dead,” Katz said. “This is the ultimate obligation of the State of Israel in the name of mutual responsibility and the unity of the people.”

“Our goal is a clear victory without compromise,” he said.

He also reiterated Israel’s determination to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“We won’t allow the threat of destruction to the State of Israel,” he said.

At an Israel Police Memorial Day ceremony earlier in the morning at Mount Herzl, during a speech to bereaved families of slain officers, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called for the death penalty to be imposed on terrorists.

“We will continue to build up the Prison Service to be powerful and firm,” he said, adding that on his watch, the agency has already “changed all the conditions for imprisoned terrorists.”

“May it be that we achieve a death penalty law for terrorists,” the far-right leader said, vowing to “continue to give backing to police” as national security minister.

Ben Gvir returned Tuesday evening from a trip to the US that he cut short by a day, apparently in order to take part in Memorial Day ceremonies.

Following a trend in recent years, several ministers were jeered by the public as they took part in Memorial Day ceremonies across the country.

In Tel Aviv, people shouted “All of them, now!” at Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, in a call to bring home all 59 hostages still held in Gaza.

בזמן נאום דיכטר בבית העלמין קריית שאול – קריאות מהקהל "את כולם עכשיו"@eli_zil pic.twitter.com/vo16sEilhc

— גלצ (@GLZRadio) April 30, 2025

Others held up signs with the number “59.”

In Ramle, people shouted “traitor” at Social Justice Minister May Golan. Others walked out when she began her speech.

The interruptions came despite a heavy police presence at military cemeteries in a bid to stop a repeat of the outbursts that marred last year’s commemorations.

Participants held up signs with the names of the hostages as Transportation Minister Miri Regev spoke in Holon, but did not interrupt her, instead holding a silent protest.

Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf said he would not attend a ceremony at Kiryat Gat’s military cemetery, after an outcry from bereaved families in the city who opposed his presence because he supports a blanket exemption from military service for his ultra-Orthodox community.

Hundreds of people gathered at the military cemetery in the Druze village of Hurfeish for a Memorial Day ceremony to honor fallen Israel Defense Forces soldiers from the community.

“This past year was so hard,” Diana Zoher Rabah said, whose father, Merey Zoher, 39, was killed while serving in the IDF in 1994. “Every soldier who is killed brings up fresh memories.”

Two soldiers from Hurfeish were killed during the ongoing war: Anwar Serhan and Jawad Amer.

“We have lived with this pain for 30 years, and I know what they will go through for the next 30 years,” Rabah said.

Speaking at the ceremony, Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush told the crowd that the government knows about the “terrible situation in Syria,” and “we will make sure that nobody hurts the Druze in Syria,” in reference to violence against the community over the past day near Damascus.

Porush mentioned Serhan and Amer, as well as the “tragedy that occurred in the Druze community of Majdal Shams” in July, when 12 children were killed by Hezbollah rockets.

The Druze, he said, “give so much to the nation. We know that the government can do more to strengthen the Druze community.”

Memorial Day began Tuesday evening at 8 p.m. with ceremonies taking place across the country, including a state memorial at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

On Wednesday afternoon, Transportation Minister Regev announced that she was canceling the Independence Day torch-lighting ceremony scheduled for the evening in Jerusalem due to strong winds and a massive brushfire raging in the nearby hills.

“I just concluded a situational assessment with the safety officials. There is potential for serious damage and risk to human life. My decision is unequivocal — not to take any risk,” Regev said.

The ceremony on Mount Herzl is a pivotal event marking the emotional transition from Memorial Day to Independence Day, from mourning to celebration.

Three hundred and nineteen soldiers have been killed in service since Israel’s last Memorial Day, the Defense Ministry said, and another 61 disabled veterans died due to complications from injuries sustained during their service.

The numbers brought the total to 25,420 of those who have died during service to the country since 1860, the year from which Israel, and before it the Jewish community in the region, began counting its fallen soldiers and defenders.

The annual figures include all soldiers, police officers, Shin Bet agents, and civilian security officers who died in the past year, whether in the line of duty or as a result of an accident, illness, or suicide.

The vast majority of the 319 were killed in the ongoing war, fighting in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and the West Bank.