Israeli Remembrance Day observed on May 4

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 5 (UPI) -- Israel observed Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel's Wars and Victims of Terror on Sunday.

At an event Sunday evening at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, President Simon Peres told the families of the deceased "without the courage of your children, husbands, brothers and sisters we would not have a state."

In Tel Aviv, 3,000 gathered for the ninth annual Israeli-Palestinian Remembrance Day, an alternative ceremony for Jewish and Arab Israelis. Writer and author Rubik Rozental, whose brother died in the Yom Kippur War, explained that he stopped attending official state ceremonies because they "revere the eternal young victim sacrificed for the conflict" whereas the alternative ceremony honors victims from both sides. "We only have one war to fight. And it's a war without guns and without blood, it's a war to end the conflict."

Israel's defense ministry noted there have been 57 casualties since Remembrance Day 2013, and 50 additional disabled Israeli Defense Force veterans.