Dier yassin

The Dier Yassin Massacre:

The researcher “Shoshani” revealed “that the Supreme Court of Israel refused the solicitation whose purpose was to reopen the archives of the Israeli army that was related to the massacre of Deir Yassin; the sixty third commemoration of which was on Friday”.

Shoshani also demanded to “compel the Israeli army to open its archives to see the pictures of this massacre which were taken by the photographer Haganah”. She also said that “the three judges of the Supreme Court examined the appeal and decided to refuse it under the pretext that “the wounds have not healed yet/ Al Jazeera – 08/04/2011”. She clarified that “The solicitation was discussed without her participation or one of her assigned lawyer on that matter. Whereas, delegates from the government and security services were present, and presented before the judges atrocious pictures from the massacre which costed the lives of hundreds of Arabs”.

Collective Palestinian memory indicates that the mass massacre committed by the Zionist forces against the inhabitants of Dier Yassin was by far the most dangerous and its effects most felt since it was ingeniously employed by Zionist leaders to instill fear and horror in the Palestinians.

The village of Deir Yassin lies to the West of Jerusalem and is 770 meters above sea level. It is rich in antiquity, its houses are built from quarry, and its alleys are narrow and crooked. It has a total area of 12 Dunums with another 2,857 Dunums constituting its overall area. Its total population as of 1945 was around 800 people. Today, on its ruins, lies a Jewish settlement, “Jefat Shaoul”, and forms part of the Jerusalem Municipality.

2-8-1- Details of the Massacre as Documented in a Number of Sources

Before the crack of dawn on Friday, April 9, 1948, and under the cover of darkness, over 100 members of the Israeli Irgun and Hagana gangs, armed with guns, hand grenades and automatic rifles, and commanded by Menachem Begin, headed towards the village of Dier Yassin.

The element of surprise was indeed deliberately sacrificed when an armed armored vehicle led the way announcing through a loud speaker mounted atop, that the village should be vacated. The villagers responded by reigning in on the vehicle with a heavy barrage of gunfire forcing it to swerve uncontrollably and fall into a ditch at the entrance of the village; this signaled the outbreak of the battle.

The fierce resistance by the Palestinian defenders, according to an account published in the Jerusalem Post, exceeded all expectations. As dawn cracked, Zionist forces escalated the barbarity of their assault in an attempt to minimize their losses by resorting to detonating the houses’ entrances then storming in and slaughtering their occupants. These forces were later joined by members of the Palmach who concentrated their assault, using mortar fire, on the main road leading to the village to prevent any rescue attempt from the nearby village of Ein Karem.

The “battle” came to a close in the afternoon when the village was overwhelmed by the ferocity of the attackers. Palestinian survivors were crammed in military vehicles, which later paraded them in the street of East Jerusalem, where they were dispensed with later. The losses on the Israeli side were 5 killed and more than 30 injured.[i]

There exists some discrepancy between various accounts relating to the details of the massacre.

While some accounts talk of the stationing of Arab soldiers, mainly Iraqis, at different locations around Dier Yassin since March 1948, other accounts deny that and stress that the Irgun and Lehy gangs were expecting the villagers to vacate as soon as they were ordered to do so; that these gangs were taken by surprise by the fierce resistance which prolonged the battle from around 5:00 am to 2:00 pm. Other accounts, mainly Jewish, speak of the brutality and barbarity of the gangs’ members.[ii] Meir Ba’el, an intelligence officer at the Irgun said: “The Palestinians’ resistance was at a minimal and the Jewish fighters fought stupidly”. Tesban Ya’er, the then Minister of Immigration and a Knesset member, who took part in digging the mass grave where Palestinian victims were burred, stated: “I haven’t found many empty shells which refutes the suggestion that there was a fierce resistance on the part of the Palestinians”.

News spread that “the atrocities committed during this massacre were indescribable and unspeakable. Bodies were mutilated and civilians were slaughtered using knives and machetes. There were confirmed reports that incidents of executions were taking place long after the battle has ended.

Ba’el sent a report to his superiors at the Hagana which included excerpts from a Jewish poem written in the aftermath of the massacre of Jews in Russia in 1903, entitled “City of Death”: “Get up and head towards the City of Death; witness the splashed blood, the scrambled brains, the limbs on the walls, on the ground, on the fence, everywhere”.

Ba’el adds: “After parading some 23 Arab prisoners at Mehnet Yehuda street before a huge crowd of spectators, the Irgun members took them to a nearby quarry at Jefat Shaoul and executed them all”.[iii]

Jack de Rene, the Red Cross Representative in Jerusalem visited the village of Dier Yassin on April 11, 1948, where he stated:

“The Jewish officer’s eyes at the scene were glassy, cold and repulsive at the same time. The killing was so brutal; they used automatic weapons and hand grenades, and later used machetes. This is clear to anyone who visits the scene”.[iv]

He further added:

“A Jewish female soldier brandished a knife she was carrying while still dripping in the blood of its victims; she displayed it as one would display a medal of courage”.

In referring to the Jews who took part in this massacre, Mr. Rene used the term “those beasts ….”.

He concluded that the number of those killed exceeds 350 which is much larger than Arab sources’ statistics.

The British officer assigned the task of investigating the massacre stated:

“There is much compelling evidence of incidents of rape at the hands of the Jewish attackers; likewise, a number of school children were subjected to horrific sexual assaults before being slaughtered. Elderly women were also sexually assaulted”.

Survivors’ Accounts of the Massacre

According to Menachem Begin,

“The assault started while children were sleeping in their parents’ laps. Arabs fought fiercely in defence of their homes, wives and children”.

Survivors gave their account of the massacre before the British investigative commission stating:

• “Entire families were asked to line up against a wall only to be executed wholesome; young girls were raped; a pregnant woman was slaughtered first, then her tummy was gaped open using a butcher’s knife. When a young girl attempted to rescue the embryo from the dead mother’s womb, she was shot dead. Women’s hands and ears were cult off in order to get their golden bracelets, rings, and earrings.[v]
• The bride and her groom were the first victims. They were handcuffed, along with 33 of their relatives and neighbors and lined up against the wall and executed”, according to an account given by the only survivor, a twelve year old called Fahmi Zeidan. He added: “Jews ordered my entire family to line up facing the wall. Then they opened fire; I was hit in my thigh, but we children managed to escape death as we hid behind our parents. My 4-year old sister’s head was blown to fragments. All my family members were killed: My Dad, my Mom, my grandfather, my grandmother, my uncles, my aunts, and a number of my cousins”.[vi]
• Halima Eid, a 30-year-old survivor states:

“I saw a man who had just fired a bullet that hit my sister-in-law in the neck. She was expecting to deliver at any moment. The soldier then proceeded with a knife to cause a gaping incision in her tummy. When one of the women, Aisha Radwan, tried to get the baby out of her gut she was killed. In another house, Hanna Khalil, a 16 year old girl, saw a man brandishing a big knife skinning her neighbors’ corpse, Jamila Habash, from head to foot”.

Detailed evidence derived from the survivors’ point to the fact that these brutal systematic attacks continued from house to house.

“Girls and women accompanying the terrorist gang were no less brutal than their male counterparts. The sound of explosives and bullets, coupled with the smell of blood and open corpses, mixed with burnt flesh and death… all this weight was prostrated on Dier Yassin, while the butchers were going on their way robbing, destroying, killing and raping”.[vii]

• Safiyya, a 40-year-old woman, described how one man had unzipped his pants and assaulted her:

“I started screaming helplessly … surrounded by all the women who were in turn screaming horrifically at my fate, then they stripped us of all our clothing and groped out breasts and other sensitive parts; some even snatched earrings from the women’s ears causing the ears to tear off”.[viii]

Although the massacre didn’t last more than 13 hours, the Zionists managed to kill no less than 25 pregnant women and more than 52 children under the age of ten, who were all dismembered. In addition, the village’s school was destroyed completely and the head teacher was also killed. In all, over 250 were killed. Women survivors were crammed in military vehicle, naked, along with their surviving children, and transferred to Mendelbaum Gate, where they were paraded in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem.[ix]

The head of the burial unit, Sheif, described what he saw in the following words:

“It was a beautiful spring day with the smell of almond flowers engulfing the area, yet this refreshing smell was mingled with the odor of death and destruction coming from all corners of the village”.[x]

Reserve Colonel, Meir Ba’el, an Irgun officer, described what he saw to the Israeli paper, Yedeot Aheranot:

“After the ceasefire around midday, soldiers started ‘cleansing’ the homes. They got out around 25 men, put them in a truck and took them in a ‘victory parade’ to Mehane Yehuda. Then they were dropped at a quarry located between Gafaat and Deir Yassin where they were all shot in cold blood. The attackers also herded women and children into a truck and transferred them to Mendelbaum Gate; the leaders of the gangs who perpetrated this massacre refused to take part in the burial of the 254 Arab victims whose corpses were scattered all over the village”.[xi]

Arieh Yetshafi, an Israeli historian, who works as a researcher in the Israeli Army, stated:

“If one is to sum up what happened at Deir Yassin, one could state that it was, to a large extent, a customary way of occupying an Arab village, where most of the houses are demolished, coupled with the killing of many women, children and elderly”.[xii]

Meir Ba’el adds to Yedeot Aheranot:

“Etsel men started a shameful indiscriminate massacre of men, women, children and elderly. They were lined up against a wall. In total, 245 people were massacred. There are some photographic evidence which proves this”.[xiii]

He adds:

“In Deir Yassin there was a massacre; they were moving from house to house killing and slaughtering”. He also stated that he has pictures, but it is worthwhile noting that such pictures were not uncovered by the Government’s archive even after his death in 1986.[xiv]

Jack de Rene, the Red Cross Representative in Palestine in 1948 described the perpetrators as “men and women armed to their teeth with rifles, pistols and hand grenades”.

He further adds:

“I entered a house which was full of destroyed furniture and all kinds of shrapnel. I also saw some cold corpses, where I soon realized that I am at the theatre of a massacre where knives and grenades had been used!! When I was about to leave, I trampled over a small warm foot. It was of a 10 year old girl who was still gasping for her life. As I attempted to lift her, I was stopped by an Israeli soldier. I pushed him aside and carried her. She was, along with two other elderly women, the only survivors. The village was the home of some 400 Palestinians; fourty managed to escape and the rest were all massacred in cold blood”.[xv]

So, according to the Red Cross Representative, the number of those massacred at Deir Yassin exceeded 360 men, women and children.

Menachem Begin – Israel’s ex-Prime Minister – boasted about this massacre in his book “The Revolution” when stating:

“The repercussions and ramifications of this operation exceeded all expectations; Arabs were so horrified by the news of what happened at Deir Yassin that they started leaving. From an original total of 800,000 Arabs who were residing in the Land of Israel, only 165,000 remained”.[xvi]

So here Begin believes that the massacre had served the Zionist Movement’s strategy and accordingly, he reprimands those who distanced themselves from it accusing them of duplicity. Some even went as far as saying that “without Deir Yassin, Israel stood no chance of coming into being”. While Etsel stuck to its original position vis-à-vis the massacre, Lehy continued to defend what happened at Deir Yassin, regarding it as “a humanitarian duty”.[xvii]

[i]. Najib Al-Ahmad, Palestine: History and Struggle, p. 429; and Velitcia Langer, Fury and Hope, Institute of Palestine Studies, Beirut, 1993, p. 72.

[ii]. Ibid.

[iii]. Ibid.

[iv]. Jonathan Damely, The Palestinians, 1979, p. 79.

[v]. Op. cit, Damely, p. 79.

[vi]. Rojeh Delom, I Accuse, 1983, p. 52.

[vii]. Ibid.

[viii]. Dominique La Pierre & Larry Collins, O Jerusalem, 1972, p. 275.

[ix]. Dr. Hamdan Bader, The Role of the Haghana in the Creation of Israel, 1985, p. 179.

[x]. La Pierre & Collins, op. cit.

[xi]. Yadeot Aharenot, 4/4/1972.

[xii]. Bader, op. cit.

[xiii]. Ibid.

[xiv]. Erik Silver, 28/11/1991.

[xv]. Palestinian Encyclopedia, Vol. 22, 1984, pp. 434-453.

[xvi]. Menachem Begin, op. cit., p. 165.

[xvii]. Abdelhafiz Muhareb, Relations Between Armed Zionist Groups (1937-1948), 1981, p. 351.