Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Thursday that the Jewish state remains committed to achieving all its war objectives and bringing home all of the hostages, telling a state memorial ceremony in Jerusalem that national unity is essential to “victory in war and peace.”
“My wife Sara and I embrace all of you, like we embrace the families of the hostages—those who have returned home, and those we will bring home,” Netanyahu said at the state ceremony at the Mount Herzl military cemetery honoring soldiers killed during the two-year war against Hamas in Gaza.
“Since the outbreak of the war, on Simchat Torah two years ago, we think every day about our heroes who fell,” he continued. “I express to you the nation’s gratitude; our lives are secure because of your beloved who fell. Thanks to our heroes—the fighters, the fallen, the wounded—and with your steadfastness, citizens of Israel— we will defeat our enemies, and secure our future together, with God’s help,” Netanyahu told attendees.
The Jewish state on Sunday held its second national day of mourning for the military and civilian victims of the Hamas-led terrorist massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, lowering flags to half-staff and holding a state ceremony.
On Oct. 7, thousands of Palestinian terrorists invaded the Jewish state from Gaza, murdering about 1,200 people, kidnapping 251 people and terrorizing hundreds of thousands more.
In 2024, Israel’s Cabinet voted to mark the attacks with an annual commemoration on the 24th day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei.
“Two years ago,” Netanyahu said at the military ceremony, “we received a shocking illustration of the term ‘genocide.’ I am not speaking about a fictitious ‘genocide'— the kind hurled at us in antisemitic slanders by those who wish us ill. The Oct. 7 massacre was a monstrous slaughter.”
The Hamas-led attacks were “monstrous in every sense of the word,” Netanyahu added. “A merciless killing of infants, children, adults, the elderly. And I tell you, if those killers could have done it, they would have slaughtered each and every one of us. This is the real genocide.”
However, following the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, “the people of Israel rose like a lion,” the premier continued.
“From the valley of tears on October 7, we reached Mount Hermon and the skies of Tehran; the heart-shaking embrace of the families of the hostages with their loved ones,” he said of Israel’s seven-front war.
Netanyahu said that following the U.S.-brokered ceasefire that saw the release of 20 living hostages from the Gaza Strip, the Jewish state still faces “great challenges” from enemies seeking to rearm, but also “dramatic opportunities” to widen the regional circle of peace.
He said that his government was acting “on both fronts at once,” stressing national unity remained vital “in war and in peace.”
“We will achieve all our objectives only through internal cohesion, mutual responsibility, and strengthening what unites us over what divides us,” according to the country’s longest-serving leader.
“Our forefathers built a home,” he stated, “and we who walk in their path add to the assurance of that home, and to the continuity of the chain of generations for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog told attendees, “It shocks me to see and hear how even now, as we continue to bury our dead, the spirit of division, polarization and hatred once again raises its ugly head.”
“We must remember: our story, thousands of years old, is a story that is bigger than each and every one of us,” the head of state warned. “When we choose to unite around a flag and a common mission, there is no mission that we cannot accomplish.”
The Israel Defense Forces’ official death toll since the Oct. 7 attacks stood on Thursday afternoon at 916, while hundreds more Israeli civilians were murdered in the massacre and subsequent attacks.
