Pained families recall their slain loved ones in tortured memorial ceremony

At the bereaved families’ memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, the camera pans to the pained faces of families and three giant screens display a run-through of the names of all those killed on October 7 and in the months since the Hamas terrorist attack.

Hosts Hanoch Daum and Rotem Sela open the ceremony, telling some of the stories of the fallen. The father of Tzvi Granot, a soldier who fell fighting, recites Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, for those gathered.

Bereaved family members, evacuees and hostages’ family members appear in recorded videos, speaking in verse about what happened to them on October 7.

Or Gat, the son of Kinneret Gat who was killed at Kibbutz Be’eri and the younger brother of Carmel Gat, who was taken hostage and killed in captivity, speaks in a video about his big sister.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” he says. “She reached so many people, it shouldn’t have happened.” Gat says he finds some consolation in the family members who returned, his other brother and niece who escaped from the terrorists and his sister-in-law, who was taken hostage and released at the end of November.

The recordings and stories are interspersed with songs sung by Israeli performers, including Gali Atari and Corin Allal, who sing “Ein li eretz aheret,” “I have no other land,” as audience members wearing Bring Them Home shirts, or shirts printed with the faces of their loved ones, are seen mouthing the words.

Allal strums her acoustic guitar in a painful duet and photos flip across the screens, showing images of the last year.

“I have no other country, even if my land is burning,” sing the two women. The two are followed by Rita, singing “One day, it will happen, without us noticing, something will change, something will ease up inside us.”