The test of whether the IDF is worthy of its role as the defender of Israel is whether it succeeds in returning the hostages held by Hamas, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir said at a ceremony at Har Herzl honoring Israel’s fallen security forces, on Monday, as part of Remembrance Day and week in Israel.
“We are fighting in order to build a more secure future, and a free state. It is our ethical obligation to return our hostages [held by Hamas] to their homes – this is the test of being the Israeli Defense Forces,” said Zamir.
He was joined by the chiefs of the Mossad, the Shin Bet, IDF intelligence, the police, and other top officials in all of those agencies.
It was notable that while Zamir also mentioned in the speech achieving “victory,” a reference to defeating Hamas, he highlighted returning the hostages as his primary message. It was unclear whether Zamir was maneuvering against elements of the government seemingly readier to sacrifice the hostages in order to continue the war for a more indefinite period – in order to have a better chance of removing Hamas from Gaza – or if “victory” was just thematically more connected to the Har Herzl context and ceremony.
Zamir also stated, “It is our obligation in the IDF to serve as a [national] conscience, to highlight the way forward and to act at all times, without hesitation... out of a sense of steady honesty, for the sake of unity, cohesiveness, and victory.”
In the midst of the fight of his life with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over when he will leave office, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar attended the ceremony in person and also addressed the audience at the ceremony in a recorded statement.
Bar could be seen staring at the wall of classified names of fallen agents who have been killed in battle over the years. He said that the deaths of these Shin Bet agents had a very personal impact on both him and the agency, as they were members of a relatively small defense unit where most were close, personally, as well as on a professional level.
Professionally, Bar said that the memory of each of the fallen agents motivated the Shin Bet to be at their best “every day and every hour” in their fight to combat terrorism.
There was no sense from Bar – involved in a tense day-after-day conflict with Netanyahu – about when he will resign. He will do so due to a combination of his role in failing to warn about Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion and his falling out with the prime minister over issues related to the latter’s fights with the legal establishment.
Mossad chief addresses crowd in recorded message
Mossad chief David Barnea also attended the ceremony and addressed the audience in a recorded message saying that as “We defend the security of our homeland,” we salute “our heroes, you who lost your lives for the homeland... We have pride in your and our strategic achievements... you will always be part of the family of the Mossad.”
He added, “We remember you with our [ongoing] activities and achievements... we will continue to act with cunning and with a readiness to sacrifice.”
Sirens commemorating Remembrance Day are set to go off tonight at 8 p.m. and tomorrow at 11 a.m.