Yizhar Shai, who lost his son Yaron in battle, expressed deep disappointment after a memorial display for the victims of the October 7 attacks was removed from Ben Gurion Airport. Returning to Israel last week, Shai noticed that hundreds of stickers, including one honoring his son, had disappeared from the security scanner and nearby wall.
When he asked airport staff about the missing stickers, he was told, “We received orders from above to remove everything and leave nothing.” Shai said he was not surprised, noting that there are those who do not want travelers confronted with the pain, the cost of the ongoing conflict, and the memory of the victims.
He continued, “Am I surprised? Not at all. I can clearly envision those who would prefer that the images of the murdered and the fallen not reveal the pain and the cost of this tragic failure and the ongoing war, particularly in a location traversed by hundreds of thousands of Israelis each month. There are those who wish to avoid confronting such a stark and painful reality.”
Shai emphasized, “However, this is what I must convey to those who would prefer that we move on, that we vanish from your awareness, that we cease to remind you of the searing scars and the price of this calamity: the blood of the approximately two thousand victims of this war, both civilians and members of the security forces, flows through the veins of this nation and will continue to do so indefinitely.”
In his post, Shai emphasized that while life must continue and the nation must heal, the memory of nearly 2,000 victims—civilians and security personnel—must never be erased. “Even if you remove their images, they remain with us, part of Israel forever,” he wrote. “One day, this field of blood will become a field of poppies—in their honor.”
Shai concluded with a call to remembrance: the sacrifices and loss must always be acknowledged, and the victims’ memory will remain part of the nation’s life “from now until eternity.”