From the Liveblog of
Thursday, April 25, 2024
IDF evaluating how best to ‘recognize and honor’ hostages, other civilians in unique circumstances amid war
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
The Israeli military is establishing a panel that will evaluate how it will “recognize and honor” hostages and other civilians who participated in the fighting or were in unique situations amid the war.
The advisory committee was appointed by the head of the IDF Personnel Directorate, Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor, at the request of IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and with the approval of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the military says.
The IDF says the panel is being established over Hamas’s October 7 onslaught and the subsequent war in Gaza, “which raised complex and painful issues concerning bereavement, memory, and heroism.”
The military had received requests from a number of families of slain civilians who participated in the fighting during the onslaught, as well as the family of one of three Israeli hostages mistakenly killed by IDF troops in Gaza, Alon Shamriz, asking to have them recognized as fallen soldiers.
“The advisory committee will examine the appropriate way of recognition and honor, including the need to change the existing situation, to respond to the unique cases at this time,” the IDF says.
Members of the panel will submit their recommendations to Halevi by June 30.
Their recommendations are to focus on four main topics: A policy for recognizing fallen fighters in unique cases, including IDF soldiers; a policy for honoring civilians in unique cases; the recognition of individual cases, such as unusual circumstances of death; and how the panel’s recommendations can be implemented, including by law.
The panel will be headed by Maj. Gen. Moti Baruch, the former head of the IDF Training Command. The members include Maj. Gen. Orli Markman, President of the Military Court of Appeals; Asher Ben Lulu, deputy head of the Defense Ministry’s Personnel Department; Herzl Shmuel, head of the Defense Ministry’s unit for commemorating slain soldiers; Jocelyn Bash, a former head of the IDF Casualty Department; Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, chair of the Public Council to Commemorate Soldiers; Rabbi Prof. Yigal Shafran; and Dr. Shimon Azulay.
