Lookout Hadar Miriam Cohen’s father has been fighting for 18 months for the regional cemetery where she was buried to be recognized as a military plot.
Corporal Hadar Miriam Cohen, a lookout at the Nahal Oz IDF post, fell on October 7th in the fierce battle, at the age of 18. At the request of her parents, Hadar was buried in the regional cemetery of Sdot Dan, near where her family lives, as there is no military plot there.
Since then, eighteen months after her death, Cohen’s family has been waging an obstinate struggle to allocate the cemetery where Hadar and another fallen soldier are buried, as a military plot.
In an interview with Kan Reshet Bet on Monday, Hadar’s father, Yigal Cohen, spoke about his dispute with the Ministry of Defense on this issue, as the security establishment is responsible for maintenance and services to military cemeteries.
“Our daughters were nobody’s children, and the fact that they haven’t built a military plot for us proves that this policy continues,” Cohen said. “I want a military plot to honor my daughter. She doesn’t deserve her grave to look like this. She is a soldier who fell in the defense of the State. She fell for the sanctity of this nation and she deserves full honor. I will fight for it, until the end.”
Cohen also spoke about Hadar’s personal diary, which the family received only two months ago: “She wrote everything there, about the Hamas bunkers, the traffic routes, their positions. We understood again how responsible, how caring she was for the soldiers and the residents of the area. Now it’s the holiest item I have at home.”
The Ministry of Defense responded: “Following the family’s request to establish a military plot in the Ahiezer cemetery, representatives of the Ministry of Defense met with the head of the Ahiezer Council, since this is an area that falls under the auspices of the Council and it must take necessary action to declare it a military plot.”
Representatives of the Ministry of Defense will meet once again with the mayor and the family in order to find an agreed-upon solution.”
