IDF soldiers from the Shimshon battalion Thursday demolished a wooden structure that served as the beit hamidrash (Torah study hall) of the community of Homesh in Shomron (Samaria).
Activists decried the brutality and vandalism that accompanied the demolition and said it seemed as if the soldiers had undergone “a terrible brainwashing.”
Homesh was a flourishing community until the Israeli army and police tore it down as part of the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and northern Shomron in 2005. The activists, who belong to the pioneer group “Homesh First,” built the structure two years ago, immediately after a large scale event in which thousands of people visited Homesh, and it has operated continuously since, with high-school aged students and older ones in attendance.
'Crazed fury'
"The forces behaved with great brutality and after demolishing the structure which was constructed of plywood sheets, they drove a jeep on top of the ruins and trampled it again and again,” witnesses said. “After that, the soldiers vandalized the personal equipment of the civilians who reside there. They tore up the cushions of the sofa that served the civilians and damaged other personal belongings.”
"This is a battalion that only arrived on the scene a few days ago and this is their first acquaintance with a situation like this in this region,” one of the activists explained. “The crazed fury with which the soldiers acted was shocking.”
Homesh First announced that a cornerstone had already been laid overnight for a new yeshiva structure, and that this time it would be made of stone.
“The brutal destruction and harsh vandalism were carried out against a backdrop of repeated Sabbath-breaking at Homesh,” the group said. Recently, four evictions were carried out in the middle of Sabbath eve.
"Something very bad is happening at Central Command,” said Yossi Dagan of Homesh First. “The command, which gave IDF soldiers the bizarre and ludicrous order not to eat at the roadblocks on Ramadan because it offends the Muslims' religious sensibilities, makes sure to punish the civilians who keep coming back to Homesh by deliberately carrying out evictions on Sabbaths and destroying a Torah study hall. Not long ago, Arab hooligans burned the Homesh Yeshiva's holy books and now Central Command destroys the study hall.”