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Sirens Sound for the Dead — and for Rockets — on Israeli Memorial Day
People stand still as a siren sounds marking Israel’s Memorial Day, while the country commemorates fallen soldiers of Israel’s wars and Israeli victims of hostile attacks, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Memorial sirens for generations of Israeli war dead sounded on Monday while air raid sirens warned of incoming shells from the conflict triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Traffic slowed to a standstill for the traditional two-minute silence for Israel’s annual Memorial Day, observed the day before Independence Day.
There was one new vigil at the site of a music festival where more than 350 revelers were killed.
Grief-stricken relatives stood face-to-face with pictures of the dead erected across a desert field.
“I want to remember her here, and light a candle for her and pray for her,” said 31-year-old Naama Kazes whose friend died.
President Isaac Herzog opened commemorations at Jerusalem’s Western Wall on Sunday evening with his shirt collar torn in a Jewish mark of mourning.
Speaking after him, armed forces chief Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi took personal responsibility for the failure to stop the cross-border rampage by Palestinian terrorists, the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
Much public anger has focused on the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a veteran conservative who long promoted himself as guarantor of national security.
Netanyahu has sidestepped questions of his political liability. He casts the war — which has set off a second front with Lebanon and drawn attacks by Iranian-backed militias in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq — as a showdown with Tehran that he had long predicted.
“Our beloved, who fell in this war, and in all of Israel’s wars … represent eternal values: love of humanity and people, love of country, readiness to sacrifice, belief in a just cause,” Netanyahu said in a speech.
“It’s either us — Israel — or them — the Hamas monsters. Either continued existence, liberty, security, and prosperity — or destruction, slaughter, rape, and enslavement. And we are determined to be victorious in this struggle.”
Some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 kidnapped on Oct. 7 during Hamas’ onslaught. Since then, Israel has waged a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that rules neighboring Gaza.
Swathes of Israel have been evacuated in the south near Gaza and in the north on the border with Lebanon, both of which saw air raid alerts on Monday. The memorial sirens sounded with a fixed tone, while air raid sirens had rising and falling notes, so residents could tell the difference.
Commentator Chen Artzi-Sror wrote in the best-selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that this year it was not a day of remembrance because the “ongoing present of sorrow and loss” was not yet in the past.
“There is no daily routine at a moment when our brothers and sisters are held hostage, when entire swathes of our country are empty of residents, when the list of fallen and wounded grows by the day.”
While surveys have found broad Israeli support for the war, views on the government are mixed. Almost half of the public — 48 percent — wanted ministers to sit out memorial events at military cemeteries, the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank said.
The post Sirens Sound for the Dead — and for Rockets — on Israeli Memorial Day first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.