Bereaved Family Removes Military Headstone in Protest, Places It Outside IDF Headquarters

In an unusual and highly emotional act of protest, the family of a fallen Israeli soldier dismantled their son’s military headstone and placed it outside the General Staff building at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv.

The protest was carried out by the family of Sgt. Gur Kehati, who was killed in November 2024 alongside Maj. (res.) Ze’ev (Ze’evu) Erlich during an encounter in southern Lebanon. Kehati’s mother sharply criticized the military justice system, which recently handled the investigation into the incident in which the two men were killed.

According to the family, the decision to dismantle the headstone was symbolic. Kehati’s mother said the act was meant to release her son from what she described as “the Israel Defense Forces of the rank-and-file,” a bitter expression of her sense of abandonment and betrayal.

Family members physically removed the military gravestone and placed it outside the General Staff building at the Kirya shortly before a scheduled meeting with senior military prosecutors. Kehati’s mother, Maayan Agmon Kehati, later wrote that although the family had been summoned to the Military Advocate General’s Corps for a meeting with the Military Advocate General and the Chief Military Prosecutor, she herself did not attend due to what she described as an inability to do so emotionally.

She said her relatives went instead to what she called a “dubious meeting” with military officials, during which they were told that their son “was not killed in a fortress.” Following that meeting, the family decided to dismantle the headstone. “We released Gur from the IDF,” she wrote. “From a place where he gave his entire being, his entire life’s path that was built with blood, sweat, and tears.”

Parts of the mother’s remarks, which included harsh statements made in her grief, were censored by the news outlet for understandable reasons.

The protest comes about a week after the Military Advocate General’s Corps informed Col. (res.) Yoav Yerum, who served as chief of staff of the Golani Brigade at the time of the incident, that the investigation file against him had been closed without criminal charges. The decision did, however, include a recommendation for possible command-level disciplinary steps.

Sgt. Kehati and Maj. (res.) Erlich were killed during a clash in southern Lebanon after a Golani force was sent to an ancient fortress where Hezbollah operatives were present. In the aftermath of the incident, the IDF Chief of Staff ordered an internal probe to determine whether there had been a genuine operational need for the mission, or whether the soldiers had been dispatched primarily to secure Erlich, a reserve officer and archaeological researcher who had expressed interest in the ancient site.

{Matzav.com}