The official state October 7 Remembrance Day was held Thursday at the Mount Herzl Military Ceremony in Jerusalem, following its Hebrew date, attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and many of the country’s leaders.
Herzog expressed the sentiments of so many Israelis when he thanked the parents of the fallen soldiers who fought on that dark day and during the ensuing two-year war to defeat Hamas and bring the hostages home from Gaza.
“Thank you for the sons you raised – valiant soldiers who did not hesitate to go forth to save Israel, to defeat the enemy, and to bring back the hostages,” he said. “Soldiers who carried pictures of the hostages in their pockets and courage in their hearts.”
“These days are of immense historical and emotional weight – filled both with relief and with the deepest pain and sorrow,” he added, referring to the remarkable release of the 20 living hostages on Monday and the continued struggle to bring home the remaining bodies of the fallen.
Herzog also warned against divisions within Israeli society at a time when unity is desperately needed.
“It horrifies me to see and hear that even now, as we continue to bury our dead, the spirit of division, polarization, and hatred once again raises its ugly head,” he said.
“When we do not surrender to the extremists and the agitators among us – when we choose to unite around a shared flag and a common purpose – there is no task we cannot achieve,” he added.
The hostages who have returned and face prolonged and excruciating rehabilitation deserve no less from the country they represented in captivity, and the families of the fallen still being held by Hamas deserve the same support and collective hug that they’ve been receiving the past two years.
No time to stop asking for hostages back
Nobody should be removing their yellow ribbons or other displays of solidarity until all of the victims have been returned. The war is not over, and the focus needs to be on demanding that Hamas abides by the agreement delineated in US President Donald Trump’s plan.
Implementing the plan – which includes disarming Hamas and installing an interim internationally run government – is going to be a formidable task. The more we learn about the conditions that the hostages had to endure and about who their captors were, the more it becomes clear that the enemy in Gaza is not only the Hamas terrorists.
Former hostage Tal Shoham, who was released this past February, revealed for the first time, just before the release of the 20 hostages on Monday, that among his captors and guards during his captivity were a first-grade teacher, a lecturer at a university, and a doctor.
“These are normal people becoming terrorists,” he said.
“I saw with my own eyes that they stole boxes and boxes and boxes of humanitarian aid from Egypt, from Turkey, from the Emirates, but they didn’t agree to give us any of this food in the tunnels,” said Shoham, who was held with fellow hostages Guy and Evyatar David, who were released on Monday.
Tami Braslavski, the mother of freed hostage Rom Braslavski, said his captors had demanded that he convert to Islam to ease his conditions, but he refused. Her son was held alone for two years – part of the time with bodies of slain hostages next to him, she told Channel 13.
Each disclosure is worse than the previous one, and each strongly negates the accusations throughout the war that Israel was punishing all Gazans because of the actions of a small minority of Hamas members.
Israel’s war to free the hostages and defeat Hamas was just, and history will vindicate its efforts, which will hopefully deliver a mortal blow to Hamas as a terrorist threat.
As we marked the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre amid the return home of our freed family members and the beginning of the return of our murdered loved ones, the country will do well to take Herzog’s words to heart.
Now is not the time for infighting and the polarization that characterized the pre-October 7 atmosphere and undoubtedly contributed to Hamas concluding that the country was weakened and vulnerable.
We must stand united in continuing to demand that Hamas return the rest of the hostages’ remains and in being vigilant. Because even though the current battle might be over, the war against Hamas is ongoing.