Father of Fallen Soldier Describes the Human Toll Behind “Approved for Publication” Notices

The father of Sgt. Rif Harush, who was killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, published a personal post describing how every Israeli military death notice instantly returns him to the moment his family received the news, the funeral, and the beginning of life after loss.

In the post, he said that whenever he sees the words “approved for publication,” he is pulled back to the moment the door opened and his family realized, “Your child was killed.” He described screams of grief, collapsing to the floor, and crying out to heaven, followed by relatives and friends arriving at the house, unanswered questions, and the practical burden of arranging the funeral.

He added that the family is later asked to send a photo for the announcement, while more people keep arriving and the relatives gather through a sleepless night as the words appear “on television, on social media, everywhere.”

“For the world it was just another ‘approved for publication’ notice. For us it was the beginning of a different life,” he wrote, calling those two words “the line between who we were and who we had to become.” He ended with a message to his son: “Everything we knew before is over. How sad that you were killed, Rif. How sad that more continue to be killed. I love you, and miss you very much.”