Qibya Massacre
Qibya Massacre:
At 19:30 hrs of October 14, 1953, a 600-man Israeli armed forces division moved, in a premeditated military plan, towards this Palestinian village. They encircled it and subsequently isolated the village from its surrounding neighborhoods. The Israeli aggression started with a heavy and indiscriminate destructive artillery bombing of the residential areas before the attacking forces reached the borderlines, whereas the other part of the Jewish forces headed for the neighboring Arab villages, such as Shuqba, Budrus, Ni’leen, etc. to block any possible rescue.
The Israeli forces also laid down mines on the roads connecting Qibya with its neighbors, and entered the village with heavy firing. The National Guard in the village, led by Captain Mahmoud Abdul Aziz, supported by the entire population of the village, bravely resisted the invasion until they ran out of ammunition. Most of them were killed. The Israeli Military operation lasted to 4:00 a.m. the next day.
On their withdrawal, the Israeli aggressors left behind 56 houses, the mosque, the school, and the water reservoir—all demolished, 67 men, women and children dead, and a number of injured. Whole families were entirely wiped out in this onslaught; among those killed was the 12-member family of Abdul Mun’im Qadous ; Mousa Abu Zeid and four members of his family, including his wife and three children, and, four of Mohammed Maslout’s children were also massacred.
3-7-1- Eye Witness: Sharon Charged with War Crimes
Speaking in Belgium about the massacre perpetrated half a century ago on his home village, Qibya, by the Israeli army division 101, under the command of the now Israel’s prime minister Ariel Sharon, and in which 56 Palestinian houses were demolished, Mohammed Abdallah Saleh Al Maslout told of his bitter memories.
As he and other 46 Palestinian families came to lodge a lawsuit against Sharon for the war crimes he committed in their village,
the now gray-haired Al-Maslout said: ‘Do I forget? … How can I forget? – though after 48 years and two days – my 9-month pregnant wife and two children: Sha’aban (5) and Muyassar (7)! They will stay with me as long as I live.”
He added that ‘’it was the olive harvest in the village. We were separated from Israel by barbed wires. However, the Israeli soldiers made their incursion from the western part of the village with mules loaded with mines and ammunition’’ Apparently, the mules had been purposely fitted with rubber horseshoes so that no hoof beats could be heard. Maslout went on to say that one of the guards of the olive fields saw the Israeli soldiers approaching at 7:00 p.m. They shot him down. The other guard was caught and shackled, but he managed to escape. He was followed by a hail of machine gun bullets and hit in the leg. However, he crawled his way to the village and reported on the attack. Some of the villagers believed him, others did not. Those who trusted Maslout left immediately to the hills.
Al Maslout stressed that he fled his home because he presumed that the Israeli army wouldn’t touch women. In the morning, most of the houses in the village were blown up over the heads of all who remained there. Very few of them miraculously survived.
The Israeli army division plunged into the village “in a retaliatory operation to teach the Palestinian village a lesson” drawn on the pretext that some Palestinian commandos (fedayeen) had penetrated from the village into Israel and killed one of the guards of the newly established Israeli agricultural cooperative (kibutz).
All the time since this massacre, Sharon has maintained that he never knew that people remained in those demolished houses. In his memoirs, and also in interviews, Sharon admitted that he ‘blew up those houses believing they were empty of people’.
Al Maslout said “the inhabitants of the neighboring villages came to help us the next day. They took out whoever they could wrench from the rubble, and buried the dead in the destroyed water well of the village, including the family members of Abu Qadous. On the right side of Qibya’s main entrance lies a large lot of land surrounded by prickly pears and filled with wild grass. Children avoid playing there or coming near the place, while pointing with their hands and rehearsing what they learnt by heart: ‘The collective grave of Abu Qadous family, killed by Sharon.’
Fateem el Mahmoud, Al Maslout’s second wife, said that her husband used to sit alone and burst into tears. He didn’t like to talk about his family that was annihilated in the massacre, but whenever he recalls that, his tears drop down continually, and he weeps in agony and torment.
Most of Qibya’s men feel remorse for having left their women vulnerable to death. Al Maslout said that they should not have left wives and children alone at home; however, we had no arms to defend even ourselves.
He said he didn’t sleep for 21 days, and wandered aimlessly in the mountains for several years before he returned to his village.
Al Maslout said that he is not sure that Sharon’s trial will bring him anything, simply because, he argues, if the world overlooks his current crimes, how can it punish him for past atrocities! Al Maslout added that something might happen; God is much stronger than Sharon.
Most of Qibya’s population earn their living from their work in Israel. Most of the village territory has been usurped by Israel. Ben Gurion International Airport is actually built on part of its lands, other parts are being used for Jewish settlements. Qibya’s mayor, Hasan Ahmed Ragheb said that the horrible atrocities constitute a systematic Israeli policy aimed at the eviction of the people from their land and properties, and from the area as a whole.
Indeed, half of the village inhabitants were forced to migrate after the massacre to the Jordanian town of Zarqa.
According to the Oslo Agreements, signed on September 13, 1993, Qibya lies under full Israeli security control.