For some Israeli settlers, moving means disinterment of loved ones

Published: 2005-07-26

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip (CNS) -- The dismantling of Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza Strip will not only entail packing up books and clothes but will require the disinterment of 48 bodies from the small hilltop cemetery shared by all 21 communities. It will be like having to bury their loved ones all over again, said Shlomo Yulis, whose 14-year-old son, Itai Rafael, died of leukemia in 1993 and is buried there. "In the Jewish religion the treatment of a person who has died is one of the most important things," and care is taken not to desecrate the body, he said. Judaism has strict laws regarding burial, disinterment and reburial; exhumation of the body is permitted only under special circumstances. With reburial, relatives must symbolically rip their clothes and sit for the ritual seven-day mourning period as they did when the person died.

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