Two decades after Israel’s Disengagement from Gaza, haunting footage from the Neve Dekalim synagogue captures the heartbreaking final prayers, resistance, and weeping soldiers caught between duty and faith.
Thursday, the 13th of Av — Twenty years after the gut-wrenching Disengagement from Gush Katif, new footage released by Arutz Sheva – Israel National News revisits one of the most heart-rending moments in modern Israeli memory: the evacuation of the synagogues in Neve Dekalim, where faith collided with fate.
In the Sephardic synagogue, where Yuval Ginsburg and Hanan Porat stood alongside dozens of teenage boys who had barricaded themselves in, cries of “Avinu Malkeinu, open the gates of heaven to our prayer” filled the air — a desperate plea as the final Mincha prayer was recited under the looming shadow of forced removal.
Simultaneously, the Ashkenazic synagogue echoed with the prayers of young girls refusing to abandon their spiritual home.
Rabbi Yigal Kaminski, regional rabbi of Gush Katif, led a tearful prayer:
“Avinu Malkeinu, tear up the evil decree.”
His voice cracked as he recited the haunting “El Maleh Rachamim,” mourning the spiritual death of a community before it had physically fallen.
Then came the moment no one wanted: soldiers entered.
But these were not faceless enforcers — they were Israeli soldiers who wept in front of the Holy Ark, overwhelmed by the pain of removing fellow Jews from a house of God.
Torah scrolls were held tightly by boys singing “May this hour be a time of mercy,” even as they braced for the inevitable.
This footage, suppressed in emotion and memory, resurfaces as a national cry, reminding the nation of a day where soldiers and settlers sobbed together, not in opposition — but in shared heartbreak.
