| Remembering Israel's Fallen | |
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26 Apr 2004 @ 13:04, by Bruce Kodish
REMEMBERING ISRAEL'S FALLEN THROUGHOUT HISTORY
A Report from Arutz-Sheva News, Ap. 26, 2004
Today at 11:00, a two-minute Memorial Day siren was heard around the country, bringing the nation to a standstill of silence. Memorial services for the fallen are being held today in cemeteries around the country.
The late Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren, who made the decision to institute Israel's Memorial Day immediately before Independence Day, once explained Memorial Day's significance: "We view the warriors who fall in battle as those who sprout forth life. The life of a nation grew out of this blood... This day must be more than mourning: We must remember, we must grieve, but it must be a day of mourning, majesty, and vision."
Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz, in a letter to the bereaved families yesterday, also related to the fact that Independence Day immediately follows Memorial Day: "Before we raise our flag to the top of the flagstaff, the nation sets aside a day of remembrance and sadness for its heroes, the fallen of the campaigns of Israel, whose bodies and strength of spirit formed for it a protective wall, and whose blood and very lives were a foundation stone for its establishment and existence. We will remember the fallen with the very deepest love and gratefulness. Their pure sacrifice will charge us to preserve that which is precious, to correct our ways, and to make the State of Israel more and more worthy..."
The number of soldiers and security personnel who have fallen since Nov. 29, 1947, when the UN accepted the partition, thus mandating the creation of a Jewish State, is 20,297. The struggle to re-create a Jewish homeland beginning in the year 1860, when Jews began to move outside Jerusalem's Old City walls, claimed an additional 1,485 victims, for a total of 21,782. Since 1920, over 3,500 Israelis have been murdered in terrorist attacks (see and ). Since last year's Memorial Day, 185 people have been killed.
The War of Independence was Israel's costliest war, with more than 6,000 dead and 15,000 wounded. The war consisted of 39 separate operations, fought from the borders of Lebanon to the Sinai Peninsula and Eilat, and ended in 1949. Virtually the entire Jewish population of Israel, then numbering 650,000 people, was mobilized in order to meet the coordinated assault of five regular Arab armies, in addition to the 1,000,000 Arabs living west of the Jordan River.
Then followed several years of "relative" quiet - during which there were "1,339 cases of armed clashes with Egyptian armed forces, 435 cases of incursion from Egyptian-controlled territory, and 172 cases of sabotage perpetrated by Egyptian military units and fedayeen in Israel," in which 101 Israelis were killed, as Israeli Ambassador to the UN Abba Eban explained to the Security Council on October 30, 1956. Eban gave these statistics the day after Israel began the Sinai Campaign - its military response to Egypt's violation of international agreements with its sealing off the Israeli port of Eilat, effectively stopping Israel's sea trade with much of Africa and the Far East. A total of 231 Israeli soldiers died in the fighting. In March 1957, after receiving international guarantees that Israel's vital waterways would remain open, Israel withdrew from the Sinai and Gaza - yet the Egyptians still refused to open the Suez Canal to Israeli! shipp ing.
The Six-Day War broke out on June 5, 1967. Despite the stunning victories, over 770 Israelis were killed.
Then began the period of the War of Attrition. The Israeli death toll between June 15, 1967, and August 8, 1970, when a cease-fire was declared, was 1,424 soldiers and more than 100 civilians.
Egypt, Syria and Jordan attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, 1973. The IDF ultimately emerged victorious, but a total of 2,688 soldiers were killed.
In June 1982, in response to continued terrorist attacks from across the Lebanese border, and most specifically an assassination attempt by a Palestinian terrorist group on Israel's Ambassador to Great Britain Shlomo Argov - which left him crippled and hospitalized until his death last year - Israel attacked Hizbullah in what was known as Operation Peace for Galilee. Close to 460 soldiers were killed between June and December 1982, and another 760 in daily ambushes against Israeli forces by May 31, 1985.
In December 1987, the first Arab "intifada" broke out, lasting for some three years. In more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives against civilians and soldiers, 27 Israelis were killed and more than 3,100 Israelis were wounded.
In the years following the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993, 250 Israelis were killed up until the beginning of what became known as the Oslo War. Approximately another 840 Israelis have been felled by PA terrorists and gunmen since September 2000.
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Category: Articles
5 comments
30 Apr 2004 @ 21:13 by Bruce @24.205.69.22 : Corrections
***Corrections:
Contrary to what was reported here on Monday, 937 people have been murdered since September 2000 in the PA-initiated Oslo War against Israel. For a full list, please see the link provided in Monday's report: . In addition, Jordan did not attack Israel during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, contrary to what was reported, whereas Israel did attack the Lebanese terrorists - not yet organized into the Hizbullah organization - in 1982.
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