Fifty-two years have passed since October 7, 1973 — the day the Yom Kippur War began — yet the same voices and the same sights still haunt me.
That day, the sky fell. A heavy, black cloud covered the land. The terrible failure began to show its marks, and across Israel there was chaos and confusion. I remember the arrogance, the complacency, the blindness — the same political culture that refused to learn. The same war of generals. The same failed assumptions. The same darkness.
And once again, as then, the same question lingers: Where was the strong Israel Defense Forces when we needed it?
My brother, Staff Sgt. Eliezer, may his memory be blessed, was among those who paid the price of Israeli hubris. He was 32 years old. We too fled from the news, unable to face what we feared to know. For a year and seven months, we lived with the torment of uncertainty — our brother listed as “missing.” Later, the words became harsher: “fallen IDF soldier whose place of burial is unknown.
Then, as now, politicians and generals were blind to reality, intoxicated by their own power, marching toward moral decay. They prepared for a different kind of battle — the upcoming elections — while the fog of arrogance covered the entire country.
The illusion of calm
In those days, as now, promises of calm came easily. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah in 1973, the defense minister appeared in a festive television interview, assuring the nation that along the Suez Canal, “we are guaranteed ten years of quiet.” Ten days later, war broke out — the Yom Kippur War.
I remember those words when I think of the promise made three months before October 7, 2023, by the head of Military Intelligence, who said that Israel was guaranteed “at least five years of calm from Hamas.”
Only in a country that has lost its moral compass do parents, then as now, pray simply to bury their children in the soil of this land — those who gave her everything they could.
My brother’s last letter
Three days before the war began, Eliezer wrote his final letter. “The weather is a little hot, but bearable,” he wrote. “I hope to leave this week, but it’s hard to say for sure.” His words reached us only after he fell.
Was he hinting at the dread in the air along the canal? What went through his mind? I remember a headline that appeared on the eve of the war, written by a military correspondent who tried to warn about Egyptian troop movements across the Suez. The military censor deleted most of it, leaving only an empty, meaningless report.
The battle at the canal
Six concrete memorials now stand to honor the fallen of Battalion 68 of the Jerusalem Brigade — Brigade 16 — who held strongholds along the northern and central parts of the Suez Canal. They had been called up for reserve duty just days before the war. On those six gray blocks are engraved the names of 76 soldiers who fell, the names of the outposts, and the cries for help that came over the radios on October 7, 1973 — cries hauntingly identical to those of October 7, 2023.
“They’re coming at us, do you understand?”
“Come on, fire the artillery.”
“I kept waiting for the planes — how long does it take for a plane to get here?”
“They’re on us, a massive force — we need air support.”
“An older man stood exposed and fired without fear — he knew someone had to raise his head.”
“They’re not answering.”
“They’re not taking prisoners — they killed the tank crew on the spot.”
“I wouldn’t let myself be captured — it was life or death.”
“I thought about my wife and child and knew this was the end… they beat us savagely, mostly with clubs, just to break us.”
“I realized we were completely alone.”
Waiting for news
Then, as now, we clung to fragments of information about Eliezer’s fate, gathered from those who returned from Egyptian captivity. We wanted to know what happened in his final moments. They told us that he stood, a fearless fighter, at the entrance to the “Orkal Gimmel” bunker, trying to block the waves of Egyptian soldiers who swarmed toward it — but it was in vain.
Only 18 soldiers held that position, most of them not combat troops. Most were killed; only a few were taken prisoner.
One of the survivors later testified: “Eliezer stood right by the entrance, afraid the Egyptians would come inside. He guarded the door. They were on the other side shouting, ‘Come out!’ and cursing. Then they fired bazooka shells into the bunker. After that, I never heard Eliezer again.”
At 3 p.m. on October 7, 1973, the stronghold fell.
Bringing him home
On April 4, 1975, the bodies of 39 IDF soldiers were returned. We hoped Eliezer was among them. A year and seven months after the war ended, on May 20, 1975, we finally laid him to rest at the Haifa Military Cemetery — “a fallen soldier whose place of burial is unknown.”
He left behind a widow, a one-year-old son, and grieving parents, brothers and sisters.
Each year, we visit Eliezer’s grave at his new-old address: Section B, Plot 2, Row 6, Grave 10. There, I feel that not only Eliezer was buried, but also an era — the end of innocence, and my faith in politicians, from then until now.
They are, to me, spineless and corrupt, enjoying the comforts of power while the state around them decays. The lighthouse of our lives went dark.
After decades of an unfinished war for our existence, I find myself echoing the words of singer Arik Einstein: “Come back, good days.” It is something we all deserve.