Army to exhume Gaza graves

2005-08-25 15:31

A former resident of the Gush Katif bloc of Jewish settlements visits the grave of one of her relatives in the Jewish cemetery near the settlement of Neve Dekalim, in the Gaza Strip. (Baz Ratner, AP)

Jerusalem - Israeli troops will on Sunday begin the process of exhuming the 48 graves in the Gaza Strip's only Jewish cemetery and reburying the dead inside Israel, officials said.

The army's rabbinate will ensure a rabbi is present at each exhumation, right through from the point that the body is removed from the grave until the moment it is reburied.

Three of the dead who were soldiers will be given a military funeral before being reburied at an unspecified location in Israel, army radio said. The other 45 will be removed in coffins draped with an Israeli flag.

"This process is difficult, it is very personal and requires endless sensitivity," major general Elazar Stern told army radio. "There is no chance in the world that the army will leave Gush Katif when there is even one grave remaining."

Gaza's only Jewish cemetery lies just outside Neve Dekalim in the Gush Katif settlement bloc.

Israel on Tuesday completed the evacuation of all 8 000 Jewish settlers from Gaza and several hundred more from four enclaves in the northern West Bank, ending nearly 40 years of occupation.

The army expects to have removed all troops and military installations from the Gaza Strip by mid-September.

- AFP