10 freed Israeli hostages to participate in March of the Living
(JTA) — Ten released and rescued Israeli hostages will travel to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp site on Thursday for March of the Living on Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance day.
March of the Living, the annual pilgrimage to the Holocaust sites in Poland and then to Israel, sees thousands of participants march alongside Holocaust survivors to memorialize those lost. Last year, 23 survivors and relatives of those killed in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack of Hamas on Israel also took part in the march.
Families of hostages and those killed in the Oct. 7 attack will also be present along with around 80 Holocaust survivors, ages 80 to 97. Survivors will include Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, who was freed from Buchenwald as a child and served as Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi.
Israel halts for Yom Hashoah, honoring the Six Million
(JNS) — Israel came to a standstill on Thursday morning as a two-minute siren sounded nationwide at 10 a.m., marking Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah).
Pedestrians stood still, drivers exited vehicles and public transportation halted in a powerful display of collective memory for the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as part of the official state commemoration. The event honored Holocaust martyrs and heroes, and was attended by top government officials, dignitaries, and Holocaust survivors.
Israeli demolitions put end to PA-backed illegal construction in Judea nature reserve
(JNS) — Israeli enforcement authorities tore down additional illegal Palestinian Authority structures in a protected nature reserve in the eastern Gush Etzion region of Judea, the Israel Hayom daily reported on Thursday.
Two buildings were razed on Thursday morning as part of a third wave of demolitions, according to the Hebrew-language newspaper, which noted that an Israeli demolition ban had been in place until a year ago.
At the orders of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry with responsibility for civilian matters in Judea and Samaria, enforcement is expected to commence soon on the southern side of the nature reserve, it said.
