“On this sacred mountain, Mount Herzl, lie generations of heroes and heroines. The wound is deeper than time. Time passes, but the pain never fades," Netanyahu said.
Israel's Remembrance Day ceremony in honor of its fallen soldiers and those who were killed in terror attacks has begun at Har Herzl in Jerusalem.
Present at the ceremony are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir.
Har Herzl is Israel's central military cemetery.
My world collapsed: Netanyahu remembers his brother
In his remarks, Netanyahu began by speaking of his slain brother, Yoni Netanyahu.
“On this sacred mountain, Mount Herzl, lie generations of heroes and heroines. The wound is deeper than time. Time passes, but the pain never fades," he said.
"My brother Yoni, who is buried here, fell 50 years ago. I was then an Israeli student in the United States. My brother Ido called me and told me that our eldest brother had fallen in battle. My world collapsed. The moment I told my parents the bitter news of Yoni’s fall was the hardest moment of my life. Fifty years have passed since then, and there is not a day that I do not think of you, Yoni.”
Later in his speech, Netanyahu said that the Iranian regime planned to carry out a nuclear holocaust against Israel.
“The ayatollah regime in Iran planned another Holocaust. It sought to destroy us with nuclear bombs and thousands of ballistic missiles. Had we not acted against this existential threat with determination and boldness, the names of the death sites, Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, could have joined the names of the extermination camps of the Holocaust: Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka. But that did not happen.”
This is a developing story.