The cabinet on Sunday unanimously approved the establishment of a memorial hall
at Mount Herzl as a central location for the commemoration of the nation’s
fallen soldiers and fighters.
The decision came two days before this
year’s commemoration of Remembrance Day, which begins Tuesday
evening.
The hall, which will cost NIS 40 million, will commemorate all
of the nation’s fallen and serve as a central location for official government
memorial ceremonies.
“We do not have a central hall to commemorate all
the fallen of Israel’s battles,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said at the
start of the weekly cabinet meeting.
“After 10 years of discussing this,
the time has come to make a decision. We are a nation steeped in memory. We are
doing this out of a deep appreciation of the contribution of the fallen, and I
hope there will not be a need for other places like this.”
The hall will
be built in the shape of a torch rising some 18 meters where a flame will burn
all year long. The walls of the hall will be lined with bricks with the names of
the fallen soldiers engraved in chronological order.