ISRAEL-INDEPENDENCE DAY Israel celebrates Independence Day with songs and an air display

Record ID: 135017

  • Title: ISRAEL-INDEPENDENCE DAY Israel celebrates Independence Day with songs and an air display
  • Date: 23rd April 2015
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (APRIL 23, 2015) (REUTERS) HELICOPTER FLYING OVER CEREMONY
  • Embargoed: 8th May 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA8W6ODZ6IUZEX72CT5YA1OUSQJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Israelis on Thursday (April 23) celebrated the nation's 67th anniversary, with family barbecues, military honour guards and a reception at the presidential residence.
    President, Reuven Rivlin, and his Chief of Staff, Gadi Eizenkot, inspected an honour guard, with the Israeli army marching band playing in the background.
    Prime Minster Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon walked side by side with Rivlin as they marked the start of Thursday's Independence Day celebrations.
    During the ceremony Netanyahu spoke of the need for Israeli's to make sacrifices to ensure a secure future.
    "Without such willingness to make sacrifices, we won't have any existence or future. Sometimes I look at the soldiers and think about my son, who's going through a battlefield training, and I think of everyone as my son or my daughter," said Netanyahu.
    Helicopters flew over Jerusalem and other Israeli cities.
    Throughout the day, there were to be a number of military displays as many Israelis celebrated outdoors with their families.
    In Jerusalem, residents celebrated with picnics and barbecues in parks.
    Ayalom Sherefkin, a Jerusalem resident, told Reuters that the holiday was a time to be with family.
    "Independence day is very nice, people are gathering in every park in Israel. And I think they are feeling much better to be together," he said.
    In Tel Aviv, the air force flew over the beach in formation as people took photos from the ground.
    Founded partly on the basis of Jewish claims to biblical land and partly as a haven for survivors of European persecution that culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, hours before a U.N. mandate in then British-ruled Palestine expired.
    While Israelis celebrate their independence, Palestinians will mark the "Nakba", or catastrophe, of the Jewish state's creation, when about 700,000 people, half the Palestinian population of Palestine, fled or were driven from their homes by Jewish fighters. Official Palestinian ceremonies and protests will take place on May 15th.
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