IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz
Photo: Gil Yohanan
"Israel has no other option but to fight and win," IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz wrote Sunday in a Memorial Day missive to IDF
soldiers.
"We will support the bereaved families in their ongoing struggle with the loss of their loved ones. We embrace them and extend to them a helping hand and a shoulder of support. Such is our commitment to them," Gantz wrote.
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Referring to Memorial Day, he added: "Today is the day Israel revisits the images of the fallen with pain and recognition. We take time to remember their battlefield heritage, their actions for the safety of the State and its people. And beyond the tales of battlefield heroism, we remember with nostalgia and a twinge of regret the young lives cut short; each and every one of them a whole world in his or her own right."
"Just like us they donned uniforms and bore arms. They sought to protect their parents, children, sisters and brothers, their friends. And today we, fighting against the same enemy they fought against, keep silence in their memory. Thousands of names engraved forever in stone and in the heart, are a constant reminder of the oath we gave: to remember them, to follow their lead and to complete their mission."
Ganz added that "for sixty-five years Israel had to fight and win. Each generation carries the security of Israel on its shoulders, and each generation in turn, unfortunately, suffers thinning among the ranks of its IDF soldiers. Every war takes of us a bloody toll. But against all enemies working to wreak harm on our citizens and our country, enemies that do not accept our existence in the land of Israel, we have no other option but to fight and win."
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