Since last year’s Memorial Day on May 27, 2024, 316 Israel Defense Forces soldiers have been killed defending the Jewish state, while 79 civilians were murdered by terrorists, Israeli authorities said on Friday.
According to the figures released by the Defense Ministry, another 61 IDF troops who were injured in the line of duty died of their wounds.
This past year, 1,647 Israelis have joined the community of bereaved families, including 487 bereaved mothers and fathers, 85 widows and 163 orphans. As of Friday, there are 8,674 bereaved parents, 5,391 widows, 10,302 orphans and 34,250 bereaved siblings in Israel.
Overall, 25,417 servicemen and women have given their lives in service to the Jewish people and the struggle for re-establishing the state since 1860, the ministry said. During the same period, 5,229 civilians were murdered by terrorists, including at least 800 children and teenagers under the age of 18.
The Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist massacre in southern Israel, in which Hamas-led gunmen killed some 1,200 people—primarily Jewish civilians—wounded thousands of others and took 251 hostage to the Gaza Strip, marked the beginning of one of the deadliest periods in the state’s history.
Since the Oct. 7 massacre and the subsequent Swords of Iron War on the Jewish state’s borders, 934 civilians have been murdered, 778 of them in the Oct. 7 massacre, according to National Insurance Institute figures.
Among those murdered since the beginning of the Gaza war were 58 children, as well as 76 foreign nationals, the government body stated.
Earlier on Friday, the IDF announced that Master Sgt. (res.) Asaf Cafri, 26, a tank driver in the 14th Reserve Armored Brigade’s 79th Battalion, was killed battling Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip on Thursday.
Cafri’s death brought the military death toll since the Oct. 7 massacre to 849, including 412 who were killed during the Gaza ground campaign.
Israel will mark Remembrance Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the Wars of Israel and Victims of Acts of Terrorism, or Yom Hazikaron, beginning at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, when sirens will sound for one minute across the country.
A two-minute siren will sound at 11 a.m. the following day, when official memorial ceremonies and private remembrance gatherings will begin at the cemeteries where soldiers are buried.
The main ceremony held at the Western Wall, Judaism’s second-holiest site, in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Memorial Day ends on Wednesday night, when the Jewish nation will usher in the country’s 77th Independence Day, or Yom Ha’atzmaut.
