Western Wall Plaza memorial service (Archive)
Photo: AP
Israelis to unite with memory of 22,305 fallen
Memorial Day to begin Sunday evening; memorial services to be held, flags to be flown at half mast in honor of fallen soldiers, terror victims
The State of Israel
will remembers its fallen soldiers and terror victims on Sunday evening.
The siren will be directly followed by the official memorial service at the Western Wall plaza. National flags will be flown at half mast.
At 8 pm, a one-minute siren, marking a moment of silence in honor of Israeli fallen soldiers and terror victims, will be heard across the country.
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A two-minute siren at 11 am Monday morning will open the memorial services in 43 military cemeteries across Israel and at the Memorial for Fallen Bedouin Soldiers at Hamovil Junction.
At 1 pm, the official state service in memory of terror victims will also be held.
At 4:30 pm Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will attend a service at Ammunition Hill, a site in north Jerusalem that was taken over in the Six-Day War from the Jordanians in a grueling battle.
Memorial Day will formally end with the traditional torch-lighting ceremony at Mount Herzl, which will also open Israel's 59th Independence Day festivities.
The number of fallen soldiers amounts to 22,305. This includes all those who died since 1860, the year Jews first established neighborhoods outside the walls of Jerusalem.
The number this year is higher than in preceding years due to the Second Lebanon War, which claimed the lives of 119 soldiers.
The IDF has begun changing the wording on the graves of the soldiers who were killed during last summer's war. The gravestones will read "fell in the Second Lebanon War" instead of "fell in battle in southern Lebanon." Several families have refused to have the wording changed on the graves of their loved ones.
