ISRAEL / FILE: Families of Israeli vicitims of Lebanon war reflect on events one year on

Record ID: 395490

  • Title: ISRAEL / FILE: Families of Israeli vicitims of Lebanon war reflect on events one year on
  • Date: 3rd July 2007
  • Summary: RABBI CONDUCTING MEMORIAL CEREMONY CLOSE OF REMAINS OF ROCKET
  • Embargoed: 18th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVA3P21YFTUT07VCKSUYL1R37R8J
  • Story Text: Relatives of victims of the Lebanon war held memorial services on Monday (July 2) to mark the first anniversary of the conflict with Lebanon, according to the Hebrew calendar.
    The commemorative event, named the "March of Life", consisted of a march and several ceremonies along the northern frontier. It was to culminate with an official ceremony in Jerusalem.
    The march started at Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, the site of the Hezbollah Shi'ite guerrilla group's deadliest single missile strike of the Lebanon war which killed 12 Israeli reservists on August 9, 2006.
    Families of the fallen soldiers gathered for a memorial service at the site of the attack. Some kissed the monument that bears the names and photographs of the deceased, while others lit candles in memory of the dead.
    Ariela Goldman, mother of Noam, a gunner who was killed in a battle in southern Lebanon last year, voiced disappointment of the Israeli leadership during the war.
    "After the war I started to go deep, deeper and deeper to analyse, and the more I did it I felt that the main thing which was wrong, that our leaders, the political leaders, were not really leaders," she said during the ceremony.
    After the service the bereaved families drove up to an observation point overlooking southern Lebanon to hold a memorial ceremony near Zarit, where two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and eight others were killed in an attack which sparked the month-long war.
    Shlomo Goldwasser, father of one of the missing soldiers, called on Hezbollah leader Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to launch negotiations over a prisoner exchange deal, which he hopes would secure the release of his son.
    "I'm directing my voice to Hassan Nasrallah, who started all this, and tell him - please, get out of your bunkers and your shelters, that the war finished and start, and start to fulfil your words to your people. You promised them to bring their sons back," Goldwasser said.
    Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted during the attack and are still missing.
    In all 158 Israelis were killed, including 41 civilians caught in rocket strikes. Some 1,200 people died in Lebanon, including about 900 civilians.
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