Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sat down on the floor yesterday with reserve combat servicemen and women, immediately dropping to their level, during a photo shoot for the Combat Soldiers for Combat Soldiers exhibition organized by the Support Our Soldiers association.

Netanyahu did not stand above them. He sat with them.

He called them heroes and listened as they told their personal stories, battlefield experiences, and the long road they have walked since returning from war.

“There is immense fortitude here,” Netanyahu said. “You gave everything and you are worthy of everything.”

Among those in the room, the prime minister highlighted fighters involved in the operation that eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas terror chief and architect of the October 7 massacre.

The meeting was not a staged handshake line. Netanyahu heard how they fought, how they were wounded, and how they have been coping since then. At the end of the session, they took a joint photograph that will appear in the exhibition as it tours Israel and the world, carrying their stories with it.

The exhibition, initiated by Support Our Soldiers, is built around combat veterans photographed alongside public figures so the country, and audiences abroad, will see the faces of the men and women who carried the war.

Netanyahu’s message was simple: these reservists gave everything. Israel owes them everything.