Lucy Aharish lit a torch at a ceremony marking Israel's 67th Independence Day. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Arab-Israeli journalist Lucy Aharish lit a torch as part of a group of 14 Israelis honored in the official government ceremony marking Israel’s 67th Independence Day.

In a short speech as she lit the torch, Aharish said in Hebrew that she was lighting it “for those we were but are no more, who fell victim to baseless hatred by those who have forgotten that we were all born in the image of one God.”

“For Sephardim and Ashkenazim, religious and secular, Arabs and Jews, sons of this motherland that reminds us that we have no other place, for us as Israel, for the honor of mankind and for the glory of the State of Israel,” she said, as translated by the Times of Israel.

She added in Arabic that the lighting was “for our honor as human beings, this is our country and there is no other.”

Aharish has worked as a journalist for several Israeli news outlets. She also works as an English-language anchor on the i24news international news network, which is based in Jaffa.