Israeli cabinet ministers voted Monday to give campaign medals to IDF soldiers who served in Lebanon during the eighteen years that followed the 1982 ‘Peace in Galilee’ war also known as the First Lebanon War.
The government ministers also approved a bill to award medals to the soldiers of the South Lebanon Army who fought alongside the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces all during the years of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, which took place between September 1982 and May 2000.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz – who had himself served as liaison between the IDF and the SLA in 200 during Israel’s withdrawal from the area — firmly supported the proposal to award the medals; in November 2020 he had endorsed the recommendation by the IDF to formally recognize the Israeli military’s 18 years in south Lebanon as an official “military campaign.”
עכשיו זה רשמי: אות מערכה לחיילי צה”ל וצד”ל שלחמו ברצועת הביטחון בלבנון. אישרנו בממשלה את הענקת האות. החלטה שקיבלתי אחרי המלצות הרמטכ”ל והוועדה בראשות מופז. כמי שהיה החייל האחרון שיצא משם-זאת זכות גדולה להוקיר אלפי לוחמים ואחים לנשק. נעשה הכל כדי לחלק את האות בהקדם. זה מגיע להם. pic.twitter.com/mfVDyXDe6a
— בני גנץ – Benny Gantz (@gantzbe)
“Now it’s official: a campaign medal for IDF and SLA soldiers who fought in the security zone in Lebanon. . . As the last soldier to leave, it is a great privilege to honor the thousands of fighters and brothers in arms,” Gantz wrote in the statement he tweeted.