Herzog Warns of Division as Israel Enters Election Campaign

President Yitzchak Herzog's address at the state memorial ceremony (Photo: Gregory Bado, Recorder: Avner Dvir)

The state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Swords of Iron war and all those who have fallen since October 7, 2023, took place today (Monday) at Har Herzl.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the ceremony, stating that "there are still missions ahead of us - in Gaza there will be no Hamas rule." He made clear that anyone who kidnapped Israelis is living on borrowed time.

President Yitzchak Herzog said in his address:

800 meters from Gaza, at the Nahal Oz outpost, sat the lookouts. They were 'the watchers.' They were the eyes of the IDF and of the state. They were the ones who watched and warned. While we slept, their eyes remained open, 24/7. They stayed always alert, sharp, vigilant, on the screens and in contact. They knew the sector and knew what it looked like on a regular day, and knew how to recognize when it changed.

"They sensed that something was happening in the sector, saw it, reported it and raised the alarm. But no one assembled from it a complete picture. Many months before the disaster, on the wall of the shelter at the outpost, they wrote various inscriptions. One of them was written with a cynical, sober gaze. In hindsight, the inscription takes on a chilling meaning. It captures the story of an entire country, the story of Israel on the eve of the war. And this is what they wrote in bright pink: 'Look how she walks in tranquility, as if Gaza isn't next to her.'

At six twenty-nine that terrible morning, they identified the terrorists approaching the fence and sounded the alarm. They saw them crossing it, they watched and warned. They declared in a voice that remained steady the military code for terrorists penetrating into Israel: 'Parash Turki.' The danger was on its way to them and they continued to report, with composure, with courage. Fifty-three soldiers from different units fell in the battle of heroism at the Nahal Oz outpost. And hundreds more fell that day, at the various sites. All of them heroines, all of them heroes."

Herzog addressed the approaching election campaign, saying

"These days, in the midst of the election campaign, we must look and watch the flashing warning lights, those that signal deep division and dangerous discord. It is clear that we are permitted to disagree and it is even our duty to argue, about important things, about the big questions. But we must remember, whoever disagrees with you today will live with you here tomorrow as well. His children will grow up in the same country as your children. They will be required to protect it, together, and to build its tomorrow, together.

In the past three years, we have seen families coping with loss, with injury, with hope that was not realized, with uncertainty that does not let up and with a demand for an answer and a response. We have seen citizens forced to leave their homes. Communities uprooted from their daily routine. An entire country required to cope with a reality we did not know.

And within all of this, we have also seen the forces that this wonderful people knows how to mobilize. To bring out from within itself. We have seen Israelis who rose from within the pain to help others. We have seen Israelis who extended a hand, and met an extended hand. We have seen people who did not ask who stood before them, but what he needed. We have seen people who returned to build, to plant and to harvest. In the past three years, as a nation we have known unfathomable depths. But we have also climbed to unfathomable heights. We have brought home hostages.

In this heavy campaign, to our great sorrow we have lost so many. The best of our daughters and sons. Wonderful young women and men, and also people who accumulated years of life, who built families, homes, communities. From all the communities of Israel. From all parts of Israel, from all positions, religions, beliefs, camps and ways of life. To remember and recall forever the many losses. To tell their stories.

On that shelter wall at the Nahal Oz outpost, beneath that chilling inscription, the lookouts wrote another inscription, a smaller one. It too in pink, and this is what they wrote: 'Everything will be okay. We will still shine.

It is possible and necessary to carry with us the hope, the watchful eye, and to take upon ourselves the responsibility, to do everything in our power, so that this hope can continue and be realized here in our beloved land. We will still shine."