From Jerusalem Post Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World Aug. 25, 2005 12:20 Updated Aug. 25, 2005 21:48 By ARIEH O'SULLIVAN ...
The IDF will begin the solemn task of disinterring 48 graves, including those of three fallen soldiers, from the Gush Katif cemetery this Sunday, OC Manpower Maj.-Gen. Elezar Stern said Thursday.
....The process is being coordinated with the bereaved families through the Adjunct General Brig.-Gen. Orna Barbibay. An IDF team was assigned to each family throughout the process. The families who have left the Gush and are in a new place will want to end this phase as quickly as possible and start the next phase of their lives, but also don't want to be distant or feel they have abandoned their loved ones," Stern said.
IDF Chaplain General Brig.-Gen. Yisrael Weiss said he had full halachic backing from the country's leading rabbis for the nearly unprecedented task. He even read out a ruling by former Chief Sephardic Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who cited that as chief rabbi during the 1982 Yamit withdrawal he endorsed the disinterment of Jewish graves "because the goyim may dig up the bodies and desecrate them."
...Weiss vowed that the territory would not be handed over until at least all the bodies have been removed. Weiss, himself a bereaved father, said he promised one mother to personally remove the remains of her soldier son from the Gush Katif cemetery.
According to Weiss, halacha calls for the immediate relatives; father, mother, sister, brother, spouse and children to observe mourning from the moment the body is disinterred until dusk. They are also required to observe "kriya", the renting of their clothing, but without reciting the prayer.
...Weiss also said that the full picture would only be determined on Sunday when they open the graves. Not only are the bodies to be disinterred, but the earth around them according to Jewish law and the tombstones too. The tombstones would likely be shattered during the opening of the graves. They will be collected and reburied in a mass tombstone grave, Weiss said
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