Families of fallen IDF soldiers discovered that Tel Aviv is unwilling to commemorate their loved ones with personal memorials in public spaces.

According to Israel Hayom, the municipality will only memorialize the war casualties by inscribing their names on an existing memorial wall. This decision comes from Mayor Ron Huldai, who stated as early as the 2000s that he does not want Tel Aviv to be a city of monuments.

Furthermore, the families found that they would be required to pay hundreds of thousands of shekels to the Tel Aviv Foundation for such an inscription.

"Our children were the beating heart of this city," says Yifat Ovadia, mother of the late Corporal Ido Ovadia. "They grew up here, lived here, loved this city with all their heart, and today we are forced to fight for the basic right to commemorate them."

Yaron Barakat, father of Sergeant Roi Barakat from Golani, shared the responses he received from the municipality: "They told us 'Roy was in the Scouts and loved the sea, so Scouts and sea equal Sea Scouts. Put up 150,000 shekels and you'll get a boat named after him.' The same amount was required for a science room. This is just a way to enrich the municipal coffers."

The Tel Aviv Municipality responded: "The municipality does not charge for memorializing casualties in public spaces. The paid memorialization was a mistake due to a lack of coordination between the municipality and the Tel Aviv Foundation. Once the matter was brought to the management's attention, it acted to change the procedure, and from that moment instructed not to approve charging for memorializing war casualties. We emphasize that there are organized memorialization procedures in Tel Aviv. Private initiatives for memorializing casualties were not approved."