The IDF earlier this week halted an attempt to rebuild the Homesh settlement, one of four Jewish northern Samaria communities destroyed during the 2005 Disengagement.
The Civil Administration early Monday morning destroyed the Homesh Yeshiva, whose study hall was housed in a large tent erected on top of a concrete floor.
It also took down three modular structures that housed the students and four modular plywood homes for families associated with the yeshiva.
The Homesh Yeshiva dates back to 2002. When the community was destroyed, the yeshiva’s rabbis and students continued to return to the site to study, even though the area of the razed settlement is a closed military zone.
The yeshiva, often housed in large tents, has been destroyed multiple times. But it is only in the past few years that modular homes connected to the yeshiva were also built at the site.
Last year the IDF also demolished modular living quarters connected to the yeshiva.
Right-wing politicians and settlers have long called on the government to rebuild the four West Bank settlements – Homesh, Sa-Nur, Ganim and Kadim – that were destroyed in 2005.
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, himself an evacuee from Sa-Nur, has been in the forefront of all initiatives to rescind the declaration that these areas are closed military zones and to allow them to be rebuilt. He is a longtime supporter of the right of the Homesh Yeshiva to remain on the Homesh hilltop.
This year on Independence Day, right-wing activists rallied at Sa-Nur and called for its reconstruction along with that of the other demolished settlements, including Homesh.
On Tuesday rabbis and students from the Homesh Yeshiva returned to the site and studied. They have since embarked on a campaign for funds to rebuild the yeshiva.
The yeshiva’s director, Shmuel Wendy, said, “The buildings have been destroyed, but the Torah that came out of these buildings can never be silenced.”
“It is terribly painful that precisely during this time, between Independence Day and Jerusalem Day, when we praise God for the great miracles he performed for us and the state that he gave us, this same state chooses to cut off its own hand by destroying a settlement in the Land of Israel,” said Rabbi Elishema Cohen, who heads the Homesh Yeshiva.