Sa-Nur, one of the Jewish villages in northern Samaria destroyed by the IDF under the Disengagement Plan, still had a synagogue standing, as of Monday.
Unlike the Jewish communities in Gaza, the former Jewish communities in northern Samaria, Homesh, Ganim, Kadim, and Sa-Nur remain under Israeli control. Like the Jewish communities in Gaza, after demolishing all of the homes, the IDF left the synagogues standing, because of a cabinet decision that forbade the army from destroying them.
In Gaza, the synagogues were ransacked, plundered, and burned by rampaging Arabs. But in the case of Sa-Nur, no Arab mobs dared to enter the village to destroy the building, with IDF forces remaining in the town. The army was faced with a quandary. Until Monday.
Army experts decided that the only way to get rid of the synagogue, and stay within the spirit of the cabinet’s decision, was to bury it.
Monday, the IDF began burying Sa-Nur’s synagogue in sand. To make the job easier, army engineers decided to break down the synagogue’s interior walls. Tons of sand are being trucked in to fill up the prayer sanctuary and entomb it.
The burial of the Sa-Nur synagogue brings the operation to implement the Disengagement Plan to a close.
A former resident of Sa-Nur, Yossi Dagan, spokesman for the town’s refugees said, “Filling up the synagogue with sand is destruction by the hands of Ariel Sharon, an act of desecration that permanently divorces him from the Jewish people.”
Unlike the Jewish communities in Gaza, the former Jewish communities in northern Samaria, Homesh, Ganim, Kadim, and Sa-Nur remain under Israeli control. Like the Jewish communities in Gaza, after demolishing all of the homes, the IDF left the synagogues standing, because of a cabinet decision that forbade the army from destroying them.
In Gaza, the synagogues were ransacked, plundered, and burned by rampaging Arabs. But in the case of Sa-Nur, no Arab mobs dared to enter the village to destroy the building, with IDF forces remaining in the town. The army was faced with a quandary. Until Monday.
Army experts decided that the only way to get rid of the synagogue, and stay within the spirit of the cabinet’s decision, was to bury it.
Monday, the IDF began burying Sa-Nur’s synagogue in sand. To make the job easier, army engineers decided to break down the synagogue’s interior walls. Tons of sand are being trucked in to fill up the prayer sanctuary and entomb it.
The burial of the Sa-Nur synagogue brings the operation to implement the Disengagement Plan to a close.
A former resident of Sa-Nur, Yossi Dagan, spokesman for the town’s refugees said, “Filling up the synagogue with sand is destruction by the hands of Ariel Sharon, an act of desecration that permanently divorces him from the Jewish people.”