Israel's top army rabbi was pelted with bags of garbage by Jewish settlers protesting at his visit to discuss removing graves during the planned Gaza Strip pullout.
Israeli authorities plan to dig up the remains of 48 Jews buried in a tiny hilltop graveyard in Gush Katif, the main settlement bloc in the occupied Gaza Strip, and transfer them to cemeteries in Israel.
"How can you kill a person twice?" one of the 40 demonstrators shouted at Brigadier-General Yisrael Weiss. The Orthodox rabbi did not reply. The black plastic bags were meant to symbolise burial shrouds.
At the settlement of Neve Dekalim, protesters threw the rolled-up black plastic bags at Brig Gen Weiss and said digging up their dead violated Jewish religious law.
The reburial, amid Israeli concerns that graves left behind might be desecrated, has become one of the most emotive issues surrounding the evacuation of all 21 Gaza settlements scheduled to begin in mid-August.
Jewish fundamentalists say the pullout betrays Jewish claims on Biblical land and rewards a four-and-a-half-year-old Palestinian armed uprising. But polls show a narrow majority of Israelis support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from conflict by quitting Gaza and a corner of the West Bank.
"Whoever is still opposed to it will fall silent once the last settlement has been cleared. A few scars may remain, but no open wounds," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres said.