Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with dozens of Israeli public figures and world leaders, issued statements regarding Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
Netanyahu posted two clips from his Monday night public address on Twitter/X, writing, "Our nation learned its lesson. I promised that there would not be another Holocaust, and this year, I kept that promise. Never again."
President Isaac Herzog also posted on Twitter/X, noting that "81 years [after the Holocaust], the world has not fully learned the lessons of the darkest chapter in human history."
The president warned that antisemitism is on the rise globally, and called on world leaders to act, saying, "Empty words will not cover up inaction...You must fight antisemitism with all means and in every place, before it is too late."
Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, wrote on Twitter/X that "We will never forgive those who committed massacres of our people. Hatred has not disappeared, but has evolved."
"But today we are not defenseless," Danon continued. "Today, we have a sovereign state and a strong army that fights for us and defeats our enemies."
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz 'deeply concerned' about West Bank annexation
Other Israeli public figures did not make standalone Holocaust Remembrance Day statements, choosing instead to respond to current events in light of the solemn day.
On Monday evening, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz posted on Twitter/X about his recent phone call with Netanyahu, saying: "I am deeply concerned about developments in the Palestinian territories...There must be no de facto annexation of the West Bank."
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded to Merz, first writing about him and then addressing him directly.
"On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the German Chancellor should bow his head and apologize a thousand times on behalf of Germany, rather than daring to preach morality to us on how to conduct ourselves against the Nazis of our generation," Smotrich wrote, referring to the brutality of the Gazans who carried out the October 7 Massacre.
"We will not accept instructions from hypocritical leaders in Europe," the finance minister added, before addressing Merz directly, likening the chancellor's position to that of the Nazis who cordoned off Jewish Europeans into ghettos.
"Mr. Chancellor, the days when Germans dictated to Jews where they were permitted or forbidden to live are over and shall not return. You will not force us into ghettos again, certainly not in our own land...and we do not apologize for it for a single moment."
Religious Zionist Party MK Simcha Rothman, the chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, responded to Merz's statement sarcastically.
"It is always great to hear opinions from Germans on where Jews should or should not live. Such a refreshing experience in comparison to our shared history."
"Today, we mark Holocaust Remembrance Day," Rothman continued. "Never again. Am Yisrael Chai."
Taking a similarly sarcastic tone but with the opposite position, UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese also responded to Merz with a question on Netanyahu's arrest warrant.
"May we assume that Prime Minister Netanyahu - subject to an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity - shares your concerns and has given his personal assurances that there will be no annexation?"
World leaders join Israel in marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, acknowledge Iran threat
The White House marked the day by announcing that US President Donald Trump had signed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025 into law. The act permanently extends the 2016 act of the same name, whose stated purpose is to provide the victims of Holocaust-era persecution and their heirs a fair opportunity
to recover works of art confiscated or misappropriated by the Nazis.
In a short social media video, United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee recalled the horrors of the Holocaust and the bravery of the righteous among the nations in Europe, as well as the Jewish survivors who helped build the modern state of Israel.
"I'm proud to serve President Trump, who has taken unprecedented actions to combat the poisonous hatred of antisemitism, not only at home, but abroad," Huckabee said, praising Trump's actions taken against the Iranian regime.
"President Trump has had the courage to do what no prior American president has done," Huckabee said. "And that's to end the disastrous appeasement policies of the past and...ensure the most antisemitic regime in the world never has the capacity...to destroy the one and only Jewish state."
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar also discussed Iran's threat to the State of Israel during his Holocaust Remembrance Day remarks on Monday, saying that "appeasement is once again prevailing over moral courage...Running from the challenge will not make it go away." He also drew comparisons between nations that chose not to intervene against the Nazis and those that chose not to support the US and Israel against Iran in recent weeks.
UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer wrote on Twitter/X that, this year, Holocaust Remembrance Day "comes at a time of profound anxiety...compounded by a troubling rise in antisemitic attacks targeting Jewish communities across the country."
Starmer continued his statement, assuring that he "will always act decisively to protect Jewish communities and to stamp out antisemitism wherever it appears."
Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney posted a link on social media to his formal statement, in which he introduced the Combating Hate Act, saying it would "make it a criminal offense to intentionally and wilfully obstruct access to places of worship, schools, and religious or cultural community centers."
"The responsibility to confront antisemtism belongs to all of us," Carney wrote. "Our goal is...a society where Jewish people and all Canadians can live openly, freely, and safely."