
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 17, 1995                   TAG: 9507180009
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL                                LENGTH: Short

COMMANDER DIES IN ISRAEL

Mordechai Gur, the former military commander who achieved fame for returning the last remnant of the ancient Jewish Temple to Jewish control after 2,000 years, killed himself with a gunshot to the neck Sunday. He was 65 and suffered from cancer.

Gur's military career spanned the armed struggle to win and defend a Jewish homeland. With a hand in numerous Israeli victories, he personified the mystique of Israel's paratroopers, long considered the backbone of its military.

Born in Jerusalem in 1930, Gur joined the Jewish Haganah militia in pre-state Palestine

He was best known for the words, ``The Temple Mount is in our hands,'' uttered after his paratroop unit captured Jerusalem's Old City in the 1967 Mideast War and with it the Western Wall, the only surviving portion of Judaism's holiest site, the Temple.

Thousands attended his funeral near Tel Aviv Sunday evening.

by CNB