Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon will ask the Ministerial Committee for Symbols and Ceremonies on Sunday to approve his decision to award veterans of Operation Protective Edge with a campaign decoration.

The decision is a de facto recognition of the 50-day campaign as a fully fledged war. So far in Israel’s history, campaign decorations have been awarded to veterans of seven wars – the War of Independence, the Sinai War, the Six Day War, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, Operation Peace for the Galilee and the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

The decoration will also be given to members of the Israel Security Agency (ISA or Shin Bet), Mossad, police and Prisons Authority, as well as civilian security officers in the southern communities and members of the fire brigade, Magen David Adom and other emergency services.

Like all campaign decorations, the Protective Edge pin will bear a symmetrical pattern of colored stripes that bear symbolic meaning: blue and white stripes symbolizing the national flag; red, symbolizing the blood of the fallen and wounded; orange, the color of the Home Front Corps, symbolizing the home front population, and tan – symbolizing southern Israel.

The first campaign decorations will be handed out to soldiers who receive IDF citations of merit, in a ceremony scheduled for early February.

The decision to issue the decoration took into account “the extent of the forces that took part in the campaign and its duration,” explained Yaalon.

“But above all, it is an expression of the gratitude and appreciation of the state of Israel to the soldiers and commanders, men and women, who served in the IDF in the course of Protective Edge, some of whom were also wounded, either as fighters on the front line risking their lives, or as combat support soldiers who aided the effort.”

Yaalon added: “This is a sign of gratitude and appreciation for the fallen soldiers in the operation, 67 combat soldiers in the compulsory service army, in the permanent professional corps (Tzva Keva) and in the reserve army, who paid the highest price of all in order to inflict heavy punishment on Hamas and the other terror organizations in Gaza, on the terror infrastructures and the weapons that threatened the residents of the south in particular, and the citizens of Israel in general.”

In addition, he said, the decoration is a way to thank the civilians and organizations that were “full partners in the war effort,” and which served as “an anchor and a source of assistance for the general population that absorbed mortar shells and rockets.”