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Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars
and Israel Independence Day
6-7 May 2003 - 4-5 Iyar 5763
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 it will be celebrated on Wednesday, May 7. 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 5, 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.
| Number of soldiers and security personnel who have fallen since the War of Independence |
19,914 |
Total number fallen (including the pre-State period)
This number includes disabled IDF veterans who later died from their wounds and non-IDF personnel who fell in the line of duty. |
21,540 |
| Number of soldiers killed since Remembrance Day last year |
254 |
Israel's 55th Independence Day celebrations will commence on Tuesday evening, May 6, 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.
Chief of Staff Order of the Day - Remembrance Day
On the eve of Independence Day 2003, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced that the population of Israel has reached 6.7 million - more than an eight-fold since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, when the population numbered 806,000. Since last Independence Day, the population of the state has grown by 131,000.
Three million people have immigrated to Israel since 1948, more than one million of them since 1990; 31,000 immigrated in the past year.
The Jewish population of Israel stands at approximately 5.4 million (38% of the world Jewry); the non-Jewish population is approximately 1.3 million (82% Muslims, 9% Christians and 9% Druze).
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