( AP ) - A spiritual leader of Israel's religious Zionist movement, Rabbi Avraham Shapira, has died after a long illness in Jerusalem. He was 94.
Shapira died Thursday after being hospitalized earlier in the week due to deteriorating health. Thousands of his followers had prayed for his well-being in recent days at the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem's Old City.
The rabbi of the movement that forms the backbone of Israel's settlement enterprise was most known in Israel for his call on observant soldiers in 2005 to disobey orders to dismantle 21 Jewish settlements during Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that year.
Many Orthodox Jews oppose any withdrawal from the West Bank or Gaza, considering them part of their God-given Promised Land. Shapira's call helped foster widespread fervent opposition to the pullout and fears of clashes between settlers, their backers and the security forces.
The withdrawal from Gaza and four settlements in the northern West Bank was completed with no great violence or casualties in September 2005.
Shapira also opposed the first Israeli-Palestinian peace accords in 1993, saying Jewish law forbade Israel from transferring holy land to the Palestinians.
Shapira was a chief rabbi in Israel for ten years beginning in 1983. He was a top adjudicator on the Torah and a leader of his movement's Mercaz Harav religious seminary in Jerusalem. He was to be buried in Jerusalem later Friday.