Abu Shousha Massacre

Abu Shousha Massacre:

Palestinian researchers working at Beir Zeit University have managed to uncover for the first time a massacre that took place in the village of Abu Shousha, near Ramleh, at the hands of Zionist forces. This massacre led to the killing of some 60 Palestinians and ended with the expulsion of all its inhabitants and its subsequent destruction.

The 290 page study on the massacre points out that it took place one day after the British mandate over Palestine was terminated.

One of the co-researchers stated that there was a kind of an unwritten truce between the village residents and the “Jezer” Kibbutz which was founded in March 13th, 1945. The name “Jezer” is a Canaanite word meaning “high”, in reference to the height of the land on which the Kibbutz was founded. The Kibbutz overlooked Abu Shousha which in 1948 had a total area of 9,425 Dunums and a population of 950.[i]

The study noted the existence of economic and social relationship between the Kibbutz residents and the villagers, but that such relationship

“deteriorated after the partition resolution and worsened dramatically following the killing of the Kibbutz guard on March 21st, 1948 to avenge the killing of villager Noah Mohammad Al-Haj”.

2-10-1- The Details …

According to the study, on the dawn of May 14th, 1948, Jewish soldiers from the Jefa’ati Brigade laid a tight siege to the village, and proceeded with a heavy bombardment of the strategic northern side of the village, which was guarded by 10s of defenders possessing some 70 rifles.

Jewish forces succeeded in entering the village and the Arab defenders had to withdraw. Meanwhile, women took refuge in three caves where they stayed in hiding for a whole week; Men, on the other hand, were expelled.

The women’s hideaway was discovered when one woman ventured out to cook some food for her kids. She was confronted by an Israeli patrol, which after interrogating her, were led to the caves. All the women and children were ordered out and were subsequently returned to their homes. The Women formed a 5-member “burial committee” entrusted with burying the corpses. In all 60 were buried; their names were recorded in the said study. Trenches, ditches and caves were used a mass graves.[ii]

2-10-2- Expulsion and killing

The Study accuses the Israeli Military of the responsibility for the expulsion of women pursuant to a military order it issued on May 20th, 1948. Women were ordered to come out of their homes. Soldiers were lined in two symmetrical rows, some 3 meters apart. Women were ordered to parade between those two rows facing east, where the village of Al-Qabab lies. When women pleaded with the soldiers to be permitted to go back and fetch some of their belongings, bullets were fired in the air and towards the women’s feet. The firing continued until the women were out of the soldiers’ sight. They left their village, never to come back.[iii]

• A telegraph sent to King Abdullah might provide some indication as to the magnitude of death and destruction that befell Abu Shousha and its residents. The telegraph asserted that “Jews are killing the villagers and we request the intervention of the air force”.
• Another telegraph sent from Ramleh Police Station to The Red Cross Commission states: “Jews are conducting barbaric acts and we demand the presence of a Red Cross delegation to provide the necessary assistance”.
• According to the Hagana, 5 rifles and 500 bullets were confiscated; 30 villagers were killed and 11 were detained in Rahobot, while other villagers were instructed to vacate the village.

2-10-3- The Destruction of the Village

Following its occupation, the village was razed to the ground. By 1974 it was nothing more than heaps of stones, and in 1978 it was forested, now trees stand where it once stood.

The two researchers, who were presented with the study, Fahom Shalabi and Nasr Yacoub, have traced the names of those killed, their ages, the location of their murder and sometimes their burial site. They have also met with their relatives. In all 60 were killed in a massacre the history books never mentioned a word about.[iv]

Dr. Saleh Abduljawad, the Head of Beir Zeit Research Institute, and one of the supervisors of the Study which unearthed the Abu Shousha massacre, had stated that “the importance of the massacre lies also in its timing; the day the State of Israel was born, and also in the fact that it was not recorded in history books”.

Abduljawad added: “The importance of the discovery is made ever more important today since there is much talk of a historical settlement; it is not so much to poke into past wounds or say that there could be no peace between the two sides, but to make the Israeli side feel guilty and to torpedo the fiction that there was no mass expulsion of Palestinians and that they had left on their own accord, or in response to calls from Arab States to do so; Palestinians had to flee because they were subjected to a well thought-out and systematic Israeli policy. This made them refugees, and this is the essence of the Palestinian problem”.

Abduljawad continued: “The Study is a stab in the heart of the Israeli propaganda which denies that mass expulsion campaigns ever took place. Shimon Peres, Israel’s Foreign Minister, tried in his book, “A New Middle East”, to deny that expulsion ever took place, but this study came to show that this was a naked lie”.[v]

[i]. Al-Quds Newspaper, 21/3/1995.

[ii]. Ibid.

[iii]. Ibid.

[iv]. Al-Quds Newspaper, 22/3/1995.

[v]. Al-Dustoor Newspaper, 29/10/1999.