The annual state torch-lighting ceremony aired Monday night after it was pre-recorded for the first time as Israelis began marking the first Independence Day since Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught.
Save for a separately recorded message from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that fit awkwardly into the flow of the ceremony, the mood throughout was rather somber — a stark contrast to previous years where crowds of hundreds of flag-waving Israelis would attend the celebration.
The ceremony is typically broadcast live, but government organizers moved to film it ahead of time amid speculation that they wanted to avoid the heckling that was seen at multiple Memorial Day ceremonies hours before.
The torch-lighting ceremony was held amid significant protest from those who felt the government should not be putting on such a confab after presiding over the largest, single-day slaughter of Israelis in the country’s history. Some 1,200 were killed and 252 were taken hostage during the Hamas-led onslaught on October 7, which sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
Some of the most vocal voices against holding the traditional ceremony were the relatives of the hostages and the families who have lost loved ones or been uprooted from their homes as a result of the fighting in Gaza and on the Lebanon border.
Some of them led an alternative “torch dousing” ceremony in the central town of Binyamina, which was attended by roughly 1,000 other Israelis. Another 100,000 joined other hostage families to commemorate the start of Independence Day there at a similarly somber rally at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square.
Addressing the pre-recorded state ceremony was Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana who offered a message to the 132 hostages still being held in Gaza.
“The State of Israel was not there on October 7 in its full strength and power as we all expected it to be, but since then, it has been working every day to return you home to your families,” he said, adding that “all of those serving in the Israeli security forces Israel are fighting tirelessly for your release.”
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