Defense Ministry Releases Updated Figures:
Marking two years since Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7, 2023, Israel’s Defense Ministry has released new data on the nation’s fallen security personnel.
Since the start of the war, 1,152 members of Israel’s security forces have been killed — including IDF soldiers, Israeli Police officers, Shin Bet agents, Prison Service personnel, and members of local security squads who served across Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank.
According to the ministry, approximately 42% of the fallen were under the age of 21, most of them young men serving in mandatory military service. Another 141 were over the age of 40, reflecting the broad age range of those who gave their lives in defense of the nation.
The ongoing conflict has brought over 6,500 new bereaved family members into Israel’s circle of mourning — including 1,973 parents, 351 widows, 885 orphans, and 3,481 siblings.
More than 200 of the fallen were laid to rest at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, while funerals have been conducted in 264 cemeteries and military plots across the country. To accommodate the heavy toll, 24 military plots were expanded, and new cemeteries were established. Eight fallen soldiers were transferred abroad for burial, accompanied by Defense Ministry representatives.
The ministry’s Department for the Families of Fallen Soldiers, Commemoration, and Heritage has overseen the burials, renovation and creation of memorials, and the provision of ongoing emotional and financial assistance to the bereaved.
As part of its response, the department has implemented a 60 million NIS ($18 million) reform to enhance family care and support services, established special assistance committees, and created a network of financial volunteers dedicated to helping bereaved families.
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This article opens your eyes, if you’re willing to allow them to open, to the utter foolishness and stupidity of Israel’s policies regarding war. Given the fact that by the time we got or will get hostages back more than half are dead, we lost more than 1250 Israelis in a war that should never have happened. Had we done the intelligent thing, and written off the hostages while immediately beginning targeted bombings on Gaza (and not worrying about all those “innocent civilians” put in the way by Hamas) the world would have been condemning Israel much as they are doing now, and the war would have been over before it even began. And hostage-taking would have stopped (or at least slowed) given its ineffectiveness. But now we have to trade terrorists for these mostly dead hostages, which ultimately results (as statistically proven) in even more dead Israelis in the long term.
I don’t know what the Halacha dictates regarding this kind of situation, but this chosen path did not and does not work. Trump’s bravado and silly egoistic proclamations make him and the Israelis look like fools, and we can only pray that his childish approach will succeed. But only after we lost 1000+ holy Israelis…