IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir ordered that the Israel-Hamas War be referred to as the "War of Revival" in all official military documentation, according to a document shared by Israel's public broadcaster, KAN News, on Thursday.
The policy was implemented to "ensure linguistic uniformity,” KAN reported, and will be utilized in all future IDF statements, ceremonies, and speeches.
The war, which was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 massacre, was previously labeled "Operation Swords of Iron."
KAN previously estimated that the name change would cost Israel approximately NIS two million.
The move to change the name was controversial and criticized by family members of the October 7 victims and Israeli politicians.
Eyal Eshel, the father of IDF Sgt. Roni Eshel, who was murdered by Hamas on October 7, called the directive an “illegal, political order” during a conversation with KAN.
Eshel described the order as an attempt by politicians to deflect responsibility for the security failures that led to Hamas’s infiltration.
“An army that is ordered to forget, erase, and obscure. The truth will not disappear if you forbid writing it,” he said, adding that “responsibility will not disappear if you change terms. Failure will not disappear if you silence its name."
'War of Revival' was voted on in October
In October, the government approved a proposal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change the name to the "War of Revival."
Ahead of the vote to change the name, Netanyahu explained his reasoning for the proposal, stating, “This was a war of revival for our nation, a direct continuation of the War of Independence.”
“After two years of continuous fighting, we remember how we began, rising from the terrible disaster of October 7,” Netanyahu said.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid), similarly to Eshel, decried the name change as an attempt to “erase” the events surrounding October 7.
“This was not a ‘war of revival.’ If anything, it was the ‘war of blame,’ named after all those who tried to escape responsibility and failed,” Lapid said in October. “The government can call the October 7 war whatever it wants- it won’t help.”
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud), who abstained from the vote, said the name was “unsuitable for various reasons.”
“Technically, the name is already in use,” Chikli explained in October. “The War of Independence is also known as the War of Revival, based on an initiative by prime minister David Ben-Gurion,” he said.
Chikli reportedly supported revising the name but suggested the government choose an alternative to the War of Revival.
Keshet Neev contributed to this report.