MORE THAN 80 religious Jews were arrested yesterday during protests against the decision to move ancient bones to make way for the construction of a new emergency ward at a hospital in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
The sanctity of Jewish burial sites is an issue of utmost importance for observant Jews. Ultra-Orthodox protesters have rioted in the past on a number of occasions to stop construction projects when they believed ancient remains were being violated.
The latest battleground was the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon, where the government decided to build a new bomb-proof emergency ward.
The decision took on added urgency after the December 2008 war in Gaza, when Ashkelon and the surrounding area was hit by hundreds of rockets fired by militants in Gaza.
Earlier this year, after threats from ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition, the government agreed to a costly alternative that would have located the new emergency ward away from the existing hospital campus, leaving the ancient burial site intact.
But this prompted a wave of public protest spearheaded by Israel’s medical community. Opponents accused the government of necrophilia, and of putting the interests of the dead before those of the living.
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu backed down, and yesterday bulldozers began preparing the ground for the new building adjacent to the existing hospital, as members of the Israel Antiquities Authority removed the bones.
More than 40 protesters were arrested in clashes at the site. Hundreds of police were drafted to Ashkelon to ensure the graves could be exhumed, and the remains reburied elsewhere.
Violent clashes also took place in Jerusalem and in Jaffa, where 40 protesters were detained at another flashpoint containing ancient graves.
Jerusalem police went on heightened alert in religious neighbourhoods.
According to some experts the remains are not even Jewish, and belong to the Byzantine era.
Mr Netanyahu defended the decision, telling ministers that the building was in the best interests of the public.
Ultra-Orthodox politicians described the construction as a “disgrace”, saying it would have been condemned by the government as anti-semitic had it happened abroad.