Memorial Day

At the joint Memorial Day ceremony, April 29, 2025. (Oren Ziv)

Against all odds, Israelis and Palestinians mark 20th joint Memorial Day ceremony

Facing both October 7 and Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, bereaved families sought to make space for shared grief — and insist on a different path forward.

By +972 Magazine April 29, 2025

Yuli Novak speaks during the annual Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony, Tel Aviv, May 3, 2022. (Avivomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Memorial Day is the time to betray our Israeliness

This day represents how militarism and apartheid are burned deep into our consciousness. Only when we are ready to betray it can we dream about peace.

By Yuli Novak May 4, 2022

Yacoub Rabi. (Nitzan Lotem)

Jewish terrorists killed his wife. Now he has a message for the world

Aisha Rabi was killed by settlers in the West Bank two years ago. Her husband Yacoub will commemorate her as part of a joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony.

By Orly Noy April 27, 2020

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Palestinian and Israeli women embrace during the alternative Memorial Day ceremony, April 17, 2018. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Thousands of Israelis, Palestinians mark Memorial Day together

After numerous venues backed out of hosting the ceremony and the High Court had to intervene to allow Palestinian participants to join, the crowd exceeded capacity. Right-wing Israelis protest outside. Nearly 7,000 Israelis and Palestinians held an alternative Memorial Day ceremony in Tel Aviv Tuesday night, organized by the Bereaved Families Forum and Combatants for…

By Joshua Leifer April 18, 2018

An Israeli soldier walks near graves of fallen soldiers in Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, on April 30, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Breaking the silence: I tried to commit suicide in the IDF

Seven years have passed since that day I tried to jump. Seven years in which I hardly told anyone this story. But now it is time to speak out — for myself and for all the others who were forgotten or silenced by the system. By Sapir Sluzker-Amran I tried to commit suicide in the…

By +972 Magazine May 6, 2017

Palestinians and Israelis take part in the yearly alternative Memorial Day service organized by Combatants for Peace in 2016. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Israeli government bars Palestinians from joint memorial ceremony

The Israeli Defense Ministry canceled all permits for Palestinian peace activists from the West Bank to attend a joint ceremony on the eve of Memorial Day. For the first time in the 12 years since its founding, Sunday’s joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony will take place in Tel Aviv without Palestinian peace activists. In previous years…

By Haggai Matar April 30, 2017

Israelis standing at attention on the side of the road during the Memorial Day siren. (ChameleonsEye / Shutterstock.com)

Standing up to the monopoly on mourning in Israel

For those of us who confront the realities of what goes on here every day, especially those of us who cannot escape it, or who make it part of our profession, every day is a form of Memorial Day and Independence Day. That is what we are trying to change. I went to one of…

By Mairav Zonszein May 11, 2016

The alternative, joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony, 2014. (Photo by Dan Haimovich)

Settler group tries to shut down bi-national Memorial Day event

The Samaria Settler Council, the same group that recently released a video defaming human rights groups with anti-Semitic imagery, petitions the defense minister to stop Palestinians from participating in, and to pass a law banning an alternative Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony. An Israeli settler group is trying to shut down the 10th annual joint Israeli-Palestinian…

By Haggai Matar April 19, 2015

'Defenders' Square on the Bat Yam-Jaffa border (Photo by Bukoved/CC)

The language of death in Bat Yam’s Monument Square

The nationalist machine tries to ‘sell’ city residents a story about honoring ‘defenders.’ But the latter respond: they are not defending anything anymore. They died and all that was left is a monument. By Eyal Sagi Bizjawi The central square in Bat-Yam, my hometown, is known as “the matseva” (“the headstone” or “monument”). As a child…

By Haokets May 17, 2014

Border police officer stands in front of Palestinian as they wait to cross from Qalandiya checkpoint outside Ramallah, West Bank, into Jerusalem to attend the Ramadan Friday Prayer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, July 26, 2013. Photo by: Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org

On Memorial Day, Israelis must reflect on Palestinians’ collective punishment

This year’s Memorial Day and Independence Day come at a time of increasing incidents of terror against the Palestinian population in both Israel and the West Bank. And yet, Palestinians are the ones being put under total closure. The Israeli military imposed a closure on Palestinians in the West Bank as of 6 p.m. local…

By Mairav Zonszein May 5, 2014

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WATCH: Mainstream media ignores alternative memorial ceremonies

Last month, Israel commemorated Memorial Day. While the mainstream media extensively covered official Memorial Day ceremonies, alternative ceremonies were ignored. Also in the roundup: NGO Zochrot publishes a new map showing hundreds of Arab villages that were destroyed between 1948 and 1967, including a tour to Deir Yassin and a “march of return.”

By Social TV May 6, 2013

IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz at a memorial service [illustrative], (Photo: IDF Spokesperson/Ori Shifrin)

Israel’s Memorial Day: A day of mourning and militarism

Today is not only a day of sadness for fallen Israeli soldiers, it’s also one of public declarations that all those bloody conflicts were righteous and necessary – just like the current ones and those that lie ahead. Maybe in another country, a country that goes to war once in a generation or longer, Memorial…

By Larry Derfner April 15, 2013

On Memorial Day, I stand for Tomer

For the past few years, I’ve been debating within my head the whole standing during the sirens issue. Both on Holocaust Memorial Day, and today for fallen soldiers. Something about the rituals on both days bother me, and at times it gives me the creeps in a “big brother” kind of way. The way a…

By Ami Kaufman April 15, 2013