IDF to inaugurate monument to fallen SLA soldiers

The Defense Ministry will hold a ceremony this evening to inaugurate a new memorial to soldiers in the Southern Lebanese Army who died during combat between the years of 1982 and 2000.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz and IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi are both slated to take part in the ceremony in Metula, along with SLA veterans and bereaved families.

Gantz and Kohavi will distribute campaign medals to SLA veteran commanders who fought shoulder to shoulder with IDF soldiers. The monument, which took eight months to complete, is engraved in Hebrew and in Arabic with the words: “We will remember the soldiers of the Southern Lebanese Army who fell while defending the towns of southern Lebanon and northern Israel.”