Official Report: 1854 Died in the Yom Kippur War; 1800 Were Wounded

The Israeli public was finally told this evening how many of its sons died or were injured in the Yom Kippur War. The official announcement, broadcast at 6 p.m. local time, put the dead at 1854 in 18 days of fighting and the wounded at 1800. The latter figure covers soldiers still hospitalized but does not include many more wounded who have returned to their units or are convalescing at home.

The first of a series of memorial services for the war dead will be held tomorrow at Afuleh for those killed on the Syrian front and at Shaar Hanegev for the fallen on the Egyptian front. Additional memorial ceremonies are scheduled to be held Thursday at the temporary military cemetery at Nahariya, and Sunday at a cemetery near the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz.

The size of the casualty figures–the dead projected against Israel’s population are the equivalent of 200,000 American casualties–did not come as a complete shock. Most Israelis knew more or less the extent of Israel’s losses. Pentagon assessments, which proved remarkably accurate during the war, were leaked to the American press and picked up by Israeli newspapers. Censorship rules here do not apply to foreign press reports.

This evening’s casualty announcement was accompanied by a reading from Chapt. 1, Second Book of Samuel, the Lament of David over Saul and Jonathan: “The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places. How are the mighty fallen…Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon…Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.”