{"id":403581,"date":"2026-04-21T15:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403581\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:16:11","slug":"in-bellicose-memorial-day-speeches-leaders-vow-to-keep-fighting-netanyahu-heckled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403581\/","title":{"rendered":"In bellicose Memorial Day speeches, leaders vow to keep fighting; Netanyahu heckled"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s leaders on Tuesday peppered their Memorial Day speeches with bellicose rhetoric amid the fragile ceasefire in Lebanon and Iran, promising to pursue and kill the country\u2019s adversaries.<\/p>\n

In an incident illustrating the tense national mood, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was heckled at an official state memorial ceremony, typically a decorous event. It was one of multiple times protesters confronted officials at ceremonies across the country.<\/p>\n

The day\u2019s commemorations were punctuated by a two-minute siren that rang out across the country at 11 a.m., during which Israelis stood silently in memory of the fallen.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, speaking Tuesday at the state ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, said for the second time<\/a>\u00a0that Iran wanted to perpetrate another Holocaust against the Jews, but the US and Israel stopped it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ayatollah regime in Iran planned another Holocaust,\u201d the premier said. \u201cIt sought to destroy us with nuclear weapons and thousands of ballistic missiles. Had we not acted decisively, the names Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan might have joined Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka,\u201d referring first to Iranian nuclear sites, then to Nazi death camps.<\/p>\n

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Netanyahu said that danger was averted \u201cbecause together with our great ally, the United States, we dismantled that machinery of destruction in advance. We removed an immediate existential threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the essence of this campaign,\u201d he continued, \u201cto ensure that the lifeline of the Jewish people is never cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a speech on Monday ushering in Memorial Day, Netanyahu said regarding Iran, \u201cWe have not yet finished the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defense Minister Israel Katz, also speaking at Mount Herzl, vowed that Israel would kill Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem. He blamed the Iran-backed terror group\u2019s former leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for the destruction in Lebanon that has ensued from the Israel-Hezbollah conflicts of recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I ordered the IDF to act with strength, even during the ceasefire, in order to defend our soldiers in Lebanon against every threat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNasrallah destroyed the Shiite community in Lebanon, and Naim Qassem will destroy it and pay with the loss of homes and territory \u2014 just like Hamas did in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza \u2014 until he also pays with the loss of his head,\u201d Katz vowed.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tPeople visit at Ness Ziona Military Cemetery on Memorial Day, April 21, 2026. (Tal Gal\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Protesters disrupt PM, cabinet ministers<\/p>\n

Addressing the day more generally on Tuesday, Netanyahu spoke at Mount Herzl about his slain brother, noting it had been fifty years since Yoni Netanyahu was killed in battle during the rescue of Israeli and Jewish hostages from a hijacked plane in Entebbe, Uganda, in July 1976.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moment I informed my parents of the bitter news of Yoni\u2019s death was the hardest moment of my life. Since then, fifty years have passed, and there is not a day I don\u2019t think of you, Yoni,\u201d the prime minister said.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s ceremony marked Israel\u2019s third Memorial Day since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza and, subsequently, conflicts against Hezbollah in Lebanon, against Iran, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu said at a Mount Herzl event commemorating victims of terror that \u201cwe brought back all the hostages\u201d who were kidnapped to Gaza on October 7, 2023. That prompted a heckler to shout: \u201cSome of them were killed in tunnels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 251 people taken to Gaza in the Hamas attack, more than two dozen were murdered in captivity. Protesters have long criticized Netanyahu for his perceived failure to take earlier opportunities to secure the hostages\u2019 release.<\/p>\n

In the Druze village of Isfiya, meanwhile, several residents interrupted a speech by Energy Minister Eli Cohen. The hecklers decried the government\u2019s housing policy, screaming that \u201cit is the Israeli government destroying our sons\u2019 homes, not missiles from Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif also shared those sentiments in a less confrontational manner, according to the Walla news site.<\/p>\n

Male Druze citizens are required to serve in the IDF, and while the community makes up just 2 percent of the population, the Druze account for 3 percent of all career soldiers, according to the military.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tMembers of the Druze community visit the graves of fallen soldiers during Israel\u2019s Memorial Day, which commemorates fallen Israeli soldiers and victims of terrorism, at the military cemetery in Hurfeish, April 21, 2026. (Michael Giladi\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

Many in the community have expressed resentment over the Kamenitz Law, a 2017 amendment to the planning law widely understood to be aimed at Arab communities, where building permits are almost impossible to secure, with the result that Arabs build illegally and are then fined or threatened with demolition by the government.<\/p>\n

There were also interruptions at the Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv during a speech by Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer. There, protesters held up signs with the slogan \u201cGovernment of death,\u201d which other attendees attempted to take down.<\/p>\n

\u05e2\u05e8\u05d5\u05e5 7: \u05e7\u05d5\u05de\u05e5 \u05de\u05e4\u05d2\u05d9\u05e0\u05d5\u05ea \u05d4\u05e0\u05d9\u05e4\u05d5 \u05e9\u05dc\u05d8 \u05e0\u05d2\u05d3 \u05d4\u05de\u05de\u05e9\u05dc\u05d4 \u05d1\u05de\u05d4\u05dc\u05da \u05e0\u05d0\u05d5\u05de\u05d5 \u05e9\u05dc \u05d4\u05e9\u05e8 \u05e1\u05d5\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d1\u05d8\u05e7\u05e1 \u05d1\u05e7\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05ea \u05e9\u05d0\u05d5\u05dc. pic.twitter.com\/lVKX0SoyWF<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 \u05d6\u05d9\u05e8\u05ea \u05d4\u05d7\u05d3\u05e9\u05d5\u05ea (@ZiratNews) April 21, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Ben Gvir: Oct. 7 was sad but also \u2018a moment of opportunity\u2019<\/p>\n

Speaking at the police\u2019s Memorial Day ceremony, also on Mount Herzl, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said the October 7 attack presented a \u201cgreat opportunity\u201d to alter Israel\u2019s security stance.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOctober 7 was a moment of trial, a very sad moment, [but] also a moment of great opportunity to change the \u2018conception,\u2019\u201d he said, using a shorthand for the flawed security assumptions that preceded the Hamas onslaught.<\/p>\n

He said the massacre was a chance to \u201creestablish deterrence and the standing of the IDF, police and the Prison Service, and of Israel as a superpower.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tBereaved families, friends and Israeli soldiers stand still as a two minute siren is sounded across Israel, marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorist attacks, at the site of the Nova music festival massacre, in the Re\u2019im forest, near the Israeli-Gaza border, April 21, 2026. (Tsafrir Abayov\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these opportunities we have embraced with both arms,\u201d he added. Referring to the leaders of Israel\u2019s adversaries, he said, \u201cI am proud that we have an army, Mossad, and Shin Bet that assassinated Sinwar, Nasrallah, Khamenei, and other tens of thousands of bloody murderers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He told the crowd in Jerusalem, composed of police brass and bereaved relatives of slain officers, that he strives to be \u201cworthy\u201d of security forces through the laws he has passed as part of Israel\u2019s right-wing governing coalition.<\/p>\n

Later, speaking at the military section of the Dimona cemetery in southern Israel, Ben Gvir declared that \u201cthe backing I give to the fighters and police officers in the field is absolute, because this is the only way to ensure that the sacrifice of your loved ones was not in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The far-right minister is currently embroiled in a legal battle over his alleged interference in police matters. The High Court of Justice last week heard several petitions demanding his dismissal, which Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara has endorsed.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tNational Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir at the military section of the Dimona cemetery in southern Israel on Memorial Day, April 21, 2026. (Otzma Yehudit)<\/p>\n

At Mount Herzl, Ben Gvir also boasted of having worsened conditions for Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, declaring: \u201cToday, the summer camps have been stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking at the Kfar Etzion cemetery, asserted that the residents of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc had written \u201canother glorious chapter in the history of the People of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tFinance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks on Memorial Day at the Kfar Etzion cemetery, in the West Bank, April 21, 2026. (Bezalel Smotrich\/X)<\/p>\n

In the southern city of Ofakim, Culture Minister Miki Zohar declared: We will continue to strike with power anyone who challenges us, and we will not let up until the war is decided and victory is achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gantz: After \u2018deceptive calm,\u2019 there is more fighting ahead<\/p>\n

In Sderot, another southern city hard-hit in the Hamas invasion and decades of rocket fire from terror groups in Gaza, Blue and White party chairman Benny Gantz said that despite the current \u201cdeceptive calm,\u201d there will be more fighting ahead, requiring Israelis to stand together and overcome their internal disagreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remember them all when we rise above the disputes that tear us apart and unite,\u201d said Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff. The opposition lawmaker warned that while Israelis have already gone through two and a half years of war, \u201cunfortunately, many more challenges await us in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\tA woman sits by the grave of a fallen soldier at the Ness Ziona Military Cemetery in Jerusalem during Memorial Day, April 21, 2026. (Tal Gal\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

At the Herzliya military cemetery, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said: \u201cBereaved families do not need Memorial Day to remember. There isn\u2019t a day they don\u2019t remember. The problem isn\u2019t today, it\u2019s all the other days.\u201d<\/p>\n

A total of 174 members of Israel\u2019s security forces have been killed during their service since last Memorial Day, according to fresh figures released by the Defense Ministry.<\/p>\n

That includes two soldiers who were killed over the weekend by Hezbollah explosive devices in southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Another 54 veterans died due to complications from injuries sustained during their service over the past year.<\/p>\n

The annual figures include all soldiers, police, and members of other security services who died in the past year, whether in the line of duty, or as a result of an accident, illness, or suicide.<\/p>\n

The numbers bring the total to 25,648 of those who have died during service to the country since 1860, the year from which Israel, and, before it, the Jewish community in the region began counting its fallen soldiers and defenders.<\/p>\n

Seventy-nine names were also added to the list of terror victims who perished in attacks in the past year, including 35 during the June 2025 war with Iran and 27 in the latest 40-day conflict with the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

This brings the total number of victims of terror to 5,313 since 1851, according to Israel\u2019s National Insurance Institute.<\/p>\n

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