September 20, 2005
A synagogue in a recently evacuated settlement in the northern West Bank has been buried under tons of sand to avoid its destruction by Palestinians. According to one of Israel's two chief rabbis, bulldozers piled huge mounds of sand and earth on top of the synagogue in the settlement of Sanur, one of four to be cleared of its Jewish residents last month, before Palestinian civilians moved in. "We decided that in order to avoid a desecration of a synagogue we should bury it in order to keep the building intact on the spot where it stood", Rabbi Shlomo Amar told the Israeli army radio. The decision was made after Palestinians ransacked and torched synagogues which had been left standing in the Gaza Strip last week following the departure of Israeli soldiers from the area.
The government had refused to destroy the synagogues, seen by many as symbols of the occupation, leaving the task to the Palestinian Authority. Yossi Dagan, a former spokesman for the Sanur settlers, denounced the decision saying: "Pouring tons of sand on a synagogue amounts to its destruction, its desecration." While the Israeli army has moved completely out of Gaza, its troops will remain on patrol in the area around Sanur and the three other settlements.
