Parents of fallen soldiers criticize decision to ban families from cemeteries

Ahead of Memorial Day this week, the father of a fallen soldier says the decision to not allow families to visit military cemeteries was not thoughtful and did not take the parents’ feelings into account. The decision was made amid fears of the spread of the coronavirus.

“The government did not think of the parents. It took the easiest path, without in-depth conversations and advance preparation,” says Elifaz Beloah, the father of Nadav Beloah, killed during the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

“I’m embarrassed that I have to beg the prime minister and the government to open the cemeteries. I want him [Netanyahu] to stand up and say that he trusts the parents of the fallen [service members] to be responsible enough,” Beloah says on Channel 12.

Lt. Col. Varda Pomerantz, a former head of the IDF casualties department who lost her son Daniel Pomerantz in 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, says she won’t go to her son’s grave because she is “a law-abiding citizen,” but expresses reservation about the decision.

“They’re going to reopen the country tomorrow but won’t let us go to the cemeteries?” she asked.

“His grave is 100 meters from my house. But I won’t go in solidarity with other families who can’t go,” says Pomerantz.

Memorial Day will commence Tuesday evening when a one-minute siren will ring out across Israel as the country marks the annual event amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Defense Ministry announced last month that national Memorial Day ceremonies would take place without audiences and that the smaller events planned for municipal cemeteries across the country would be canceled outright over fears of coronavirus outbreaks.

Memorial Day is one of Israel’s few national, nonreligious holidays, during which large swaths of the Israeli public typically visit the graves of loved ones and comrades.

The police will not physically enforce an order banning bereaved families from cemeteries who wish to visit the graves of their loved ones on Memorial Day next week, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett had said.