'No Independence without the hostages': Families and protestors plan alternative ceremonies
"Without the hostages there is no Independence," said organizers who invited the public to join them watching the ceremony's live stream from home or from screenings around the country.
In a riff on Israel’s traditional torch-lighting ceremony, the official ceremony that marks the end of Remembrance Day and the beginning of Independence Day, hostage families and protesters for the hostages will hold an alternative ceremony.
The ceremony will be a “torch un-lighting and hope lighting” ceremony near Binyamina on the eve of Independence Day, Monday night.
“Without the hostages there is no independence,” said organizers who invited the public to join them to watch the ceremony’s live stream from home or screened around the country.
“While the Israeli government holds a cowardly, shameful, disconnected, show with no audience, the hostage families and concerned citizens will hold a respectful and appropriate ceremony that is connected to the public’s feelings,” they added.
Unable to forget the October 7 disaster
The ceremony will “recognize the pain and loss and look directly at the joint disaster [of October 7] while still inspiring and strengthening hope,” said organizers.
Other organizations also planned alternative events this year.
The protest movement called The Day After called for a “people’s gathering” on the eve of Independence Day. “Independence Day is taking place in a reality that is impossible to grasp,” said organizers. “We cannot celebrate. We cannot act like things are normal. Nothing is normal.”
The movement called to come together for a joint artistic-protest event where participants can “express together thoughts, dreams, pain, and hope.”
The event will feature a central stage, sign- and sticker- making stations, discussion circles, and a protest drumming workshop.
The Hostage and Missing Family Forum will hold an Independence Day rally Monday night at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square. “This Independence Day we show up for the hostages,” said organizers.
The forum also announced two events that will take place on Tuesday in honor of Independence Day.
The forum in cooperation with Kibbutz Kfar Aza will hold a flyover with planes flying the pictures of the hostages still held in Hamas captivity on Tuesday.
“Society is not whole until the hostages are with us,” said organizers. Five members of Kibbutz Kfar Aza are still being held in captivity. The flyover will take off from Rishon Lezion and fly over Bat Yam, Tel Aviv, and other cities.
The forum will also host artists performing songs written about or dedicated to the hostages in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square on the evening of Independence Day.
The Valor forum, the forum of 150 bereaved families who pushed for Israel to continue military pressure against Hamas and enter Rafah, will host Remembrance Day events Sunday and Monday at their tent near the Knesset.
Among other scheduled talks and musical performances, bereaved families will share stories of their loved ones and they will screen the livestream of the ceremony at Mount Herzl.
They also put out a missive for Remembrance Day saying that the families in the forum are “joining the family of bereavement with great pain, but their head held high and with pride.”
They called on bereaved families to be proud of those who fell and asked that people put aside their differences and unite.
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