The Israeli leader has called on the world to stop comparing the Holocaust to other events in history.
Naftali Bennett, the prime minister, ushered in Holocaust memorial day in Jerusalem at Yad Vashem, the official memorial to victims, as his country came to a standstill in an annual ritual commemorating the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.
Mr Bennett said: “As the years go by, there is more and more discourse in the world that compares other difficult events to the Holocaust, but no.
“No event in history, cruel as it may have been, is comparable to the extermination of Europe’s Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators.”
Both Ukraine and Russia have compared their ongoing war to the genocide committed during the Second World War.
As sirens marking the beginning of a two-minute silence rang out across Israel, drivers got out of their cars and pedestrians halted in their tracks as they bowed their heads in respect.
Naftali Bennett and his wife (left) at the ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem
Israel is home to around 165,000 Holocaust survivors.
Mr Bennett also warned Israelis against allowing their deep differences to tear the country apart.
“My brothers and sisters, we cannot – we simply cannot – allow the same dangerous gene of factionalism [to] dismantle Israel from within,” Mr Bennett said.
Mr Bennett’s comments came after his family received a letter with a live bullet and a death threat on Tuesday.
Roads came to a standstill in Tel Aviv. Pic: AP
The siren rang while one man was crossing the road
Israeli authorities have tightened security around the premier and his family and are investigating.
Restaurants and entertainment venues across the country shut for Holocaust memorial day, while radios played sombre music and TV stations showed Holocaust documentaries.
