Israel’s Memorial Day commemorations continue Wednesday, which the official state ceremony at Mount Herzl military cemetery in Tel Aviv.

Following the second minute’s silence of Yom Hazikaron, which sounded at 11 a.m., the ceremony began with an address by Prime Minister Binyamin Netayahu – who addressed the audience as both prime minister and himself a bereaved family member whose brother, Yoni, fell in battle in 1976.

“We members of the bereaved families do not need Memorial Day to remember our loved ones who fell,” he told the families gathered in the audience. “But on this day the entire nation is with us in an embrace and with love.”

Recounting two comrades of his who were killed in action – Zohar Ben-Linik and David Ben-Hamo – he said the memory of David dying of his wounds in his arms will never leave him.

He noted how, decades later when he visited the Ben-Hamo family in Be’er Sheva, he witnessed how David’s mother had left his room exactly as it was on the day he died.

Netanyahu also recounted a more recent, extremely moving meeting, on Tuesday, with two twin girls whose father was killed in battle. When asked what they remembered of their father, the two were unable to respond.

“They couldn’t talk, they just broke down crying. We cried with them.”

“Throughout my years as prime minister whenever I get an announcement of a soldier who fell, my heart breaks with his family,” he added.

Netanyahu vowed to do “everything possible” to bring the remains of Israel’s missing soldiers back home, specifically the bodies of slain soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, which are currently being held by the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.