Bereaved families fume after waiting for Netanyahu at memorial

A memorial service for IDF soldiers who lost their lives during the 1956 Suez Crisis turned ugly on Monday after bereaved families were forced to wait an hour until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived for the event.

While some families refused to hang around, and, after holding ad hoc ceremonies, left, others vented their anger at organizers of the event, which was held at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.

Others complained of the need to walk a long distance to get to the hilltop ceremony site and a lack of adequate toilet facilities. Some of those with difficulty walking were reportedly ferried to the ceremony grounds, atop Jerusalem’s highest peak, on a tractor usually used for hauling garbage.

The fracas over the timetable was caused after members of the public were told to arrive at the cemetery at 11 a.m., apparently in order to allow enough time for security guards to process them before they entered the site. According to Hebrew media reports, the bereaved families were unaware that they were expected to wait and thought the ceremony was going to start immediately.

Netanyahu eventually arrived an hour later, accompanied by President Reuven Rivlin and IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot.

“These days it is hard for me to go up the mountain,” said Chaya Vernik, who lost her husband in the military campaign, according to a report from the Hebrew-language Walla website. “I will come back here for the sake of my fallen husband, but it is not fair and not nice. They should have said the ceremony starts at 12.”

It was the first time that Netanyahu has attended the memorial event as prime minister. The memorial is held approximately every 10 years to mark the 1956 military campaign in the Sinai Peninsula. Previous ceremonies have always started at 11 a.m.

Between October 29 and November 7, 1956, Israel, followed by France and the UK in a coordinated attack, invaded the Sinai Peninsula with the intention of gaining control of the Suez Canal and ousting Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

International political pressure forced the three armies to withdraw without achieving their primary objectives, though they did score military victories.

Two hundred and thirty-one IDF soldiers were killed, three were declared missing in action, and one was taken captive during the fighting.

Speaking to the gathering, Netanyahu apologized for the delays.

“I am sorry for the aggravation that was caused to you, and that I only found out about when I reached the mount,” he said.

Netanyahu noted that in 1956 Israel’s diplomatic ties with the US and other countries was not what it was today, a situation that influenced the outcome of the campaign.

“Things have changed since then. We are now going through tremendous international blossoming,” he said.

During his address to the audience, Rivlin apologized for the delays but also castigated the protesters.

“The reception was completely uncalled for,” he said. “It is a shame that we are desecrating the honor of the fallen.”

The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement saying “the state memorial service held at Mount Herzl was scheduled ahead of time at 12. The ceremony is organized by the Defense Ministry. The prime minister arrived at Mount Herzl at 11:47 and went into the event with the president and the IDF commander. The prime minister didn’t came late and any other version is not true.”

The PMO noted that the “discomfort to the public at the entrance and during arrival” was caused by ongoing works at Mount Herzl and a large funeral for Miriam Eshkol, wife of former president Levi Eshkol, who died on Saturday.