| Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars and Israel Independence Day
2-3 May 2006 - 4-5 Iyar 5766
Israel Independence Day is celebrated annually, according to the Hebrew calendar, on 5 Iyar, the anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. This year Independence Day will be celebrated on Wednesday, May 3. The day preceding this celebration is devoted to the memory of those who gave their lives for the achievement of the country's independence and its continued existence.
On Yom Hazikaron, Remembrance Day, which will begin on Monday evening, May 1, the entire nation remembers its debt and expresses eternal gratitude to its sons and daughters who gave their lives for the achievement of the country's independence and its continued existence. It is a day of collective and personal anguish mingled with awe and honor for the fallen.
The official events begin on Monday, May 1, at 8:00 PM with a moment of national silence heralded by a one minute siren. The following morning, ceremonies commence at 11:00 AM at 43 IDF military cemeteries located all over the country and at the Bedouin Soldier's Memorial at Movil Junction following a two minute blast of the siren.
Yizkor
A total of 22,123 men and women have been killed defending the land of Israel since 1860, the year that the first Jewish settlers left the secure walls of Jerusalem to build new Jewish neighborhoods.
In the past year, since Remembracne Day 2005, 138 members of the security forces - police, IDF, Border Police, Israel Security Agency and other organizations - have been killed in the service of the state.
Israel's 58th Independence Day celebrations will commence on Tuesday evening, May 2, when the state flag is raised to full mast at a national ceremony on Mount Herzl, at which twelve torches are lit.
With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish independence, lost two thousand years earlier, was restored.
Independence Day is a celebration of the renewal of the Jewish state in the Land of Israel, the birthplace of the Jewish people. In this land, the Jewish people began to develop its distinctive religion and culture some 4,000 years ago, and here it has preserved an unbroken physical presence, for centuries as a sovereign state, at other times under foreign domination. Throughout their long history, the yearning to return to the land has been the focus of Jewish life.
Population of Israel reaches 7 million
On the eve of Independence Day 2006, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced that the population of Israel has reached 7,026,000 - 118,000 more than last year and an 8.7-fold increase since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, when the population numbered 806,000.
- Jews - 5,333,000 (76%)
- Arabs - 1,387,000 (20%)
- Others - 306,000 (4%)
Over three million people have immigrated to Israel since 1948, more than one million of them since 1990; 21,000 immigrated in the past year.
Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel, with a population of some 718,900 as opposed to just 84,000 in 1948. Tel Aviv-Yafo, the second largest city, has a population of 378,800.
Independence Day greetings to the Jewish communities in the Diaspora
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