Gaza border residents reject government plans for Oct. 7 memorial, plan own ceremony
Kibbutz Nirim tells government it won’t serve as backdrop, after kicking out production scouts; at least 2 families of captives say they won’t let their loved ones’ names be used
Relatives of October 7 victims and other residents of the Gaza border region said Monday they would skip a state ceremony being planned to mark a year since the Hamas-led massacre on Israel’s south. Instead, they will plan their own memorial amid simmering anger against authorities for failing to free hostages held in the Strip.
At least two hostages’ families have refused to let their loved ones’ names be used in the state ceremony being planned for October 7, 2024, by Transportation Minister Miri Regev, who was recently appointed to organize the event. They expressed concerns that the event would amount to propaganda meant to whitewash the government’s culpability.
“We will not agree to our loved ones being memorialized in an engineered, contrived memorial performance under the watch of cynical politicians who shirk responsibility,” Jonathan Shamriz told the Ynet news website.
Shamriz, whose brother Alon Shamriz was one of three hostages accidentally killed by Israeli forces as they escaped their captors, is among the leaders of Kumu (rise up), an organization of border community residents that will put together the alternate ceremony.
Aside from the government’s inability to resolve the hostage crisis, southern residents and like-minded allies have fumed over the past 10 months over what they say is abandonment by the state. Many have expressed anger over the adamant refusal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other government leaders to take responsibility or even allow probes into the various missteps, which culminated in thousands of Hamas-led terrorists running rampant through southern Israel before the army or other security forces could manage an effective response.
Some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the onslaught, mostly civilians. Over 100 hostages remain in Gaza, including the remains of some who have been killed in captivity.
Regev’s event, reportedly planned as a TV special with pre-recorded speeches and segments, including from Netanyahu, has a NIS 6 million budget and is currently planned to host an audience of some 3,000 people, Channel 12 reported on Tuesday.
Instead of cooperating, Gaza border communities will hold their own “intimate, sensitive” memorials, Omri Shifroni, a Kibbutz Be’eri resident who lost multiple family members on October 7, told Haaretz.
Kibbutz Nirim, one of over a dozen communities shattered by the attack, notified the government in a missive Monday that it would refuse to cooperate with the ceremony.
“Instead of a state memorial service, we call for a state commission of inquiry,” Kibbutz Nirim said. “For an entire year, not a single government official has come to Nirim to take responsibility, admit failure and ask what is needed.”
The letter came a day after a production company sent to Nirim to scout for the ceremony was asked to leave by kibbutz residents, Channel 12 news reported.
“The lives of kibbutz members and of all residents of the western Negev are not a movie, and the government of Israel is not a production company,” the letter read.
Joining those rejecting the state ceremony Monday, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said he, too, would eschew the state memorial in favor of spending time with families of victims from Sderot, Kibbutz Be’eri and Nir Oz.
“The only ceremony that Netanyahu’s government and its extremists can and should hold is a resignation ceremony and the announcement of a state commission of inquiry,” he added.
According to Channel 12 news, a letter asking Netanyahu to cancel the event was signed by dozens of families of victims.
“We won’t allow those who caused the most brutal massacre in the nation’s history to put on a propaganda event at the expense of the lives of our loved ones,” the letter read, according to the channel.
“The event seeks to mold national remembrance at a time when some of our relatives are still alive, yearning for salvation, and as the bodies of our loved ones are still lying in Hamas tunnels,” the authors added.
Others also bristled at the prospect of holding a memorial for still-living relatives.
Mor Korngold, brother of hostage Tal Shoham, told the Walla news site he is “not marking anything, my brother is still there.”
“I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. “The failure happened because of the government, and it’s ridiculous that [the government] will hold the ceremony.”
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker and a leading critic of the government, told Haaretz that she would not let her son’s name and likeness be used in a government ceremony, a week after Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, voiced a similar sentiment. Zanguaker told Haaretz she would let the government use her son’s name only on a list of hostages to be released.
“Not in Miri Regev’s ceremonies and not in ceremonies the [Hostages] Directorate wants to hold,” Zanguaker told Haaretz.
The government decided Sunday to appoint Regev to lead the state memorial ceremony for October 7, which will be held, unusually, on the attack’s Gregorian anniversary rather than its Hebrew one.
The choice of Regev was met with immediate backlash due to the minister’s work directing the government’s Independence Day ceremonies. Some have accused her of using the high-profile events to raise support for Netanyahu. This year, hostages’ families held their own Independence Day ceremony.
There was no response to the outcry from Regev, Netanyahu or other government figures.
Nili Bar-Sinai, a Kibbutz Be’eri member who lost her husband Yoram on October 7, told Haaretz that plans for the event to be recorded rather than in front of a live audience were because “this is a cowardly government with no people, so they’re not inviting the people.”
The government, she said, is “doing the bare, hypocritical minimum, and is afraid people will say what they think.”
