Israel must never cease its efforts to bring Ron Arad to burial in Israel, President Isaac Herzog said at Tuesday’s missing fallen soldiers memorial ceremony.
“This is the supreme covenant between a state and its soldiers, one we must uphold even after decades,” Herzog said.
Held every year at Israel's national cemetery on Mount Herzl, the memorial ceremony focuses on soldiers lost in action who couldn’t be returned for burial. Falling on the seventh day of the Jewish month of Adar, it coincides with the date of Moses’s death. According to the Torah, Moses’s burial place is unknown.
Dalia Mizrahi, daughter of Lieutenant David Mizrahi, who fell in the War of Independence and whose burial site remains unknown, lit a memorial flame at the event, where speakers, including President Herzog, IDF Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Eyal Karim, head of the IDF's missing soldiers branch Lt.-Col. Shlomi Azani, and others paid tribute.
Defense Minister Israel Katz and Deputy President of the Supreme Court Noam Solberg were also in attendance.
Speaking at the ceremony, Herzog quoted Russian-Israeli poet Nathan Alterman’s “The Third,” an emotional poem about a mother whose son’s body was lost.
“There is no pain greater than that of a family, yet your pain, beloved families, is doubled and redoubled,” he said, addressing the gathered families of the lost soldiers.
“You have no grave to visit, no stone on which to lay your head, to mourn and reflect… Almost nowhere else in the world is the value of bringing home fallen soldiers so sacred as in the State of Israel.”
Three soldiers' remains recovered in 2025 cases, memorialized by Herzog
Herzog also cited three recent cases of returned soldiers whose remains had been missing. In November 2025, IDF soldiers recovered the remains of Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, who was murdered in Gaza hours after a ceasefire went into effect.
In May of that same year, the body of Private Arthur Gessner, who fell in battle during the Independence War, was recovered and buried. Just days before his recovery, a joint Mossad and IDF operation recovered the remains of Sgt.-Maj. Tzvi Feldman, who fell in the 1982 battle of Sultan Yacoub.
Herzog also expressed hope for the return of Staff Sergeant Yehuda Katz, who also fell in the battle of Sultan Yacoub.
“I know how much his family and loved ones, and all of Israel, await this moment," he said.“We will not rest and will do everything to bring him home.”
“At this important ceremony, I reaffirm and commit: we will never stop searching for them, never stop acting until all the missing, all whose burial places are unknown, are returned. This is a supreme covenant between the State and its soldiers, one we must uphold, even across generations,” he continued.
I embrace and strengthen you, and together with you, I pray for the healing of the wounded, in body and soul, and for consolation and comfort for all the beloved families.”