A placard critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was removed from the Jerusalem grave of a soldier who was killed while fighting in Gaza.

The placard, which was removed Thursday from the grave of Leet Matt, read: “Lillik died on the watch of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bibi, and of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Bogie.”

In a statement to the news site nrg.co.il, a ministry spokesperson on Friday said that the sign was removed following complaints by visitors to the cemetery. A guitar and a surfboard that were placed by the family near the grave were also taken.

Signs carrying political or partisan messages are not allowed in military cemeteries, the spokesperson added.

Motti Matt, Lee Matt’s father, accused the ministry of “coming like thieves in the night” to take the objects. “They should be ashamed of themselves, they’re are bullying the dead.”

The Matt family want military authorities to allow them to place the names of siblings of Lee Matt on his headstone at the Herzl Mount Military Cemetery as a symbol of their devotion to their brother. The family says the inscription is permitted under recent laws allowing personal messages on military headstones, while the military says it is not.

Because of the ministry’s refusal to add the siblings’ names, the Matt family declined to place any headstone at the grave. They put the placard in its place.

Staff Sergeant Lee Matt, a 19-year-old Paratroopers Brigade soldier from Eilat, died last year during Israel’s Protective Edge offensive on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift and our board will match it.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$129 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT