Mount Herzl
Mount HerzlYonatan Sindel/Flash 90

The number of Israeli casualties of war from 1860 until today stands at 23,816, according to numbers published by the Defense Ministry on Friday morning.

Since last Memorial Day, 42 people have been added to the list of fallen soldiers as well as another 33 disabled people who died as a result of their disability and were recognized during the year as Israeli casualties.

The Family, Memorial and Heritage Department of the Ministry of Defense, which is responsible for Memorial Day ceremonies, is urging the general public to remember the fallen in their homes and using digital means, to light a memorial candle and obey the guidelines of the Ministry of Health.

This coming Monday, at 8:00 p.m., a minute-long memorial siren will be sounded throughout the country, marking the opening of Memorial Day. On Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., a two-minute memorial siren will be sounded as well.

The Ministry of Defense has completed the preparation of the 52 military cemeteries, the memorial site for Bedouin soldiers at HaMovil Junction, hundreds of military burial plots and thousands of graves scattered in various communities from Kiryat Shmona to Eilat. The works included renovation, maintenance, cleaning and landscaping as well as polishing and replacement of damaged or old gravestones.

IDF soldiers, security forces and staff from the Family, Memorial and Heritage Department will visit the gravesite of every victim until Memorial Day, laying the flag of the state at half-mast together with a "Yizkor" ribbon and a bouquet of flowers.

The official ceremony at the Western Wall, which opens Memorial Day, will be held on Monday evening at 8:00 p.m. without an audience. The ceremony will be broadcast live on Arutz Sheva’s website. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the Israeli public will be asked to come out to their balconies for a mass singing of the Israeli anthem, Hatikva.

The "Songs in their Memory" event, a joint initiative of the Ministry of Defense, the Knesset and the National Insurance Institute, was filmed in advance without an audience and will be broadcast at 9:00 p.m. on Channel 11 and at 10:10 p.m. on Channel 12.

On Memorial Day:

The main memorial service at the Memorial Hall of Israel's Fallen at Mount Herzl will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning without an audience. The ceremony will be broadcast live on Arutz Sheva’s website.

This year, since the bereaved families will be barred from visiting the graves of their loved ones, the names of the 23,816 fallen Israeli soldiers will be read by IDF soldiers at the Memorial Hall from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. In addition, candles will be lit in the Hall, as they are every year, in memory of the fallen.

The names of all of the fallen soldiers will be broadcast on Channel 26 in the order in which they fell, beginning on the eve of Memorial Day at 8:45 p.m., until the conclusion of Memorial Day.