City Council members, Mayor Julian Gold, local clergy and officials with the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles spoke Thursday at the memorial site at Beverly Gardens Park on Santa Monica Boulevard, directly across from the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
The leaders say the flags are a powerful representation of the spirit of each individual who died.
About 1,200 of the flags represent the Israeli lives lost, 39 flags pay tribute to the Americans who were killed, and dozens of other flags honor victims from over 30 other countries.
"Looking at these flags, we see the magnitude of the atrocities committed by Hamas," said Israel Bachar, consul general of Israel to the Pacific Southwest. "In a matter of hours, all of these people were taken from us in such a brutal, horrifying way."
The flags will remain on display through Feb. 25.
On Friday, the United Nations' top court ordered Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza, but the panel stopped short of ordering Jerusalem to end the military offensive that has laid waste to the Palestinian enclave.
United Nations' top court rules on genocide claims against Israel
The ruling amounted to an overwhelming rebuke of Israel's wartime conduct and added to mounting international pressure to halt the nearly 4-month-old offensive, which has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, decimated vast swaths of Gaza and driven nearly 85% of its 2.3 million people from their homes.
The Israeli military claims at least 9,000 of the more than 26,000 dead were Hamas militants.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.