Emergency room to be built over graves

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided a new emergency room for a hospital in Ashkelon — not far from Gaza — will be built on its original site, despite the discovery of graves there.

Netanyahu reversed an earlier decision by his Cabinet to move the new facility more than 325 feet away because of the ancient pagan graves.

Before Netanyahu’s April 12 announcement, doctors had warned that if rockets hit Ashkelon again, the trip from a separate emergency room to Barzilai Hospital could be fatal. Ashkelon, a southern coastal city of 100,000, has been hit often. — ap