The Iran Planner and the Wounded Officer Chosen to Light Israel's Torch

The Israel Defense Forces have chosen two of their own to light a torch at Israel's Independence Day ceremony: an officer identified in the military's statement only as Col. M., who heads the Iran Department in the Air and Space Arm (the formal name of the Israeli Air Force) and Maj. Nurit Rokeach, who was wounded twice since the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023.

According to the IDF statement, Col. M. leads and is responsible for building the air arm's operational plans in Iran, both in the operation the military calls “With All Your Might” and in what it described as the current campaign, “Lion's Roar”. He has previously served as a deputy squadron commander and as a squadron commander. Maj. Rokeach, the statement said, served as a combat company commander and studied at the Tactical Command College; on 7 October she fought in the battle for the Urim base and was wounded. After a long rehabilitation she returned as commander of a dedicated reconnaissance company in the Gaza Division. About two weeks later, the statement said, an IDF outpost was attacked by six gunmen who opened fire, and she was severely wounded. Her leg was amputated during a series of complex operations, and she remains in rehabilitation.

Twelve torches on a hillside in Jerusalem

The ceremony the two were chosen for is the state event that marks the moment Israel's Memorial Day gives way to Independence Day. It is held at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, at the burial place of Theodor Herzl, and has been staged annually since 1950. Twelve torches are lit, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel, and the people who light them are picked by a public advisory committee of eight to ten members that weighs geography, age, background and the representation of religious and minority communities, according to a reference account of the ceremony. Each year the ceremony is given a central theme by the Ministerial Committee on Ceremonies and Symbols.

The 2026 ceremony took place at Mount Herzl on 21 April, and the Times of Israel reported that its theme was rendered as “Forces of Renewal” and that the evening leaned heavily on the fighting in Iran and Lebanon. The IDF's own statement, in translation, gave the theme as “The Power of Renewal”. The same report listed Col. “Mem” and Maj. Nurit Rokah among the torch-lighters, alongside civilians, a bereaved mother and a foreign head of state.

Why the colonel is only an initial

Israeli military statements routinely withhold the names of serving officers in sensitive intelligence and operational posts, and this one is no exception: the release gives a single letter and a job title. Press coverage of the ceremony followed the same convention, identifying him only as Col. “Mem”, the Hebrew letter M, in its account of the evening.

The air force's Iran file

The department the colonel heads sits at the centre of the most consequential Israeli military work of the past two years. In June 2025 Israel launched a large air campaign against Iran, known as Operation Rising Lion, striking nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Arak, airbases, missile bases and senior commanders, according to a reference summary of the campaign. Fighting resumed on a far larger scale in early 2026: on 19 March 2026 alone the IDF said it had hit more than 130 targets in western and central Iran, including ballistic missile launchers, drones and air-defence systems, per Times of Israel live coverage. The IDF statement does not say which of those operations the colonel personally led.

What happened at Urim on 7 October

Urim lies in southern Israel, in the belt of communities and bases attacked from the Gaza Strip on 7 October 2023. An Israeli military investigation into the events there, reported in May 2025 by the Times of Israel, found that ten Hamas gunmen on five motorcycles who were heading for a military intelligence facility took a wrong turn and instead broke into an adjacent Home Front Command base, where eight soldiers were killed. The investigation concluded the base's defences were not prepared for an infiltration on that scale.

What the statement did not say

The IDF release does not say which base at Urim Maj. Rokeach fought at, nor when either of her woundings took place beyond the sequence it describes. It gives no dates for the outpost attack in Gaza, does not say whether the six gunmen were killed or captured, and does not identify Col. M. beyond his initial and his post. It also does not explain how the two were selected, or by whom.