Police suspect that Arabs defaced and burned Torah scrolls at a yeshiva remaining at the Samaria town of Homesh, where Jews were expelled. “The view is awful,” the yeshiva’s dean, Rabbi Elishama Cohen said. “Dozens of holy books – Talmuds, Bibles, and prayerbooks – were almost completely burned.” The police are investigating.

Jews were expelled from their homes that were razed by the Israeli government in the summer of 2005. Since then, more than a dozen Jews have returned to live and study in a wooden structure housing a yeshiva, which security forces destroyed several weeks ago. Students have made use of a remaining courtyard of one of the homes destroyed during the 2006 expulsion.

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