‘Redemption War’: Israeli gov’t approves new name for fighting sparked by Oct. 7 attacks

By JNS STAFF

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers remarks at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Dec. 10, 2023. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO.

“After two years of continuous fighting, we remember how we began,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet at the start of the weekly meeting in Jerusalem, speaking ahead of the vote on the name change.

“We rose from the terrible disaster of October 7,” he said of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 people in Israel’s south. “This is the war of our revival—a direct continuation of the War of Independence.”

Over a year ago, in a special Cabinet meeting marking 12 months since the Palestinian terrorist invasion, Netanyahu presented a draft decision to his ministers to rename the war—which until then had been dubbed the “Iron Swords War” by the Israel Defense Forces—the “Tkuma War.”

The literal translation of tkuma in English is “rebirth” or “resurrection,” with the Prime Minister’s Office formally translating it as “redemption.”

According to the explanatory note to the Cabinet decision, “On Oct. 7, during the Simchat Torah holiday of 5784, Hamas terrorists launched a murderous attack on the State of Israel, during which they infiltrated from Gaza and massacred men, women, the elderly and children.

“During the war that started on that date, the IDF and Israel’s security agencies operated across seven fronts: in the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen and Iraq,” the note added.

The costs of the name change are estimated to be around 2 million shekel (just over $600,000), according to Sunday’s Cabinet decision.