"It's hard to hold back the tears," said Vicki Ezra as he described the remains of his synagogue in the Yad Yair outpost on Friday morning. At some time late last night unknown persons set fire the synagogue, burning the structure to the ground and destroying numerous holy texts.
An adjacent monument to the memory of Yair Mendelson was also vandalized, with the perpetrators ripping off the letters fixed to the memorial and shredding an Israeli flag placed nearby.
Ruins of the torched synagogue in Yad Yair
Yad Yair is located near the settlement of Dolev, not far from Ramallah – which is where police investigators are concentrating their efforts at the moment.
This is the second attack against the synagogue, which suffered a less damaging arson attack nine months ago. Security officials have said that both attacks were nationalistically motivated. No suspects were arrested in the previous incident.
Police officials confirmed that a formal complaint was filed and that an investigation into the incident has commenced. The army has since identified the tracks of two people heading from the outpost towards Ramallah and the investigation is ongoing.
Following the attack the congregation has decided to set up a 24-hour watch at the scene to prevent any further acts of vandalism. Meanwhile local resident and Yesha council member Adi Mintz contacted the
IDF's regional brigade commander and expressed his disappointment at the army's failure to prevent the attack.
Mintz demanded of the commander to arrange for better protection for the area.
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