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The Deir Yassin Massacre is a disputed name for a battle that took place on the outskirts and inside the village of Deir Yassin during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War between the allied Irgun and Lehi paramilitary forces, or IZL-Lehi, and Arab regular and irregular forces, around and inside the village for control of it and its surrounding areas. This battle is known mostly due to the events between 9 April and 11 April, where during (or as disputed, after) intense fighting, about 107 villagers and thirteen Arab fighters were killed, and 10 villagers and/or fighters were wounded by IZL-Lehi. During the battle, 4 Irgun and Lehi members were also killed and 40 were wounded.⁶

Reports of the event had considerable contemporary impact on the conflict, and the circumstances, nature, and evaluation of the Deir Yassin battle and its name, remain highly controversial decades later.

The modern neighborhood Har Nof in Jerusalem is partially built on the location of the site of Deir Yassin

Historical background

On 29 November 1947, the United Nations passed U.N. Resolution 181, calling for the internationalization of Jerusalem and the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish. Widespread disagreements over partition, tensions, and occassional fighting between Jews and Arabs boiled as British rule deteriorated, culminating into widespread riots and low intensity warfare in December of 1947. Fighting grew progressively worse after the Mandate dissolved on 15 May 1948, and after Israel declared its statehood, intensified into the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

During the winter and spring of 1948, the Arab League sponsored Arab Liberation Army, composed of Palestinian Arabs and Arabs from other Middle Eastern countries, attacked Jewish communities in Palestine, and Jewish traffic on major roads. This phase of the war became known as "the battle of roads" because the Arab forces mainly concentrated on major roadways in an attempt to cut off Jewish communities from each other. Arab forces at that time had engaged in sporadic and unorganized ambushes since the riots of December 1947, and began to make organized attempts to cut off the highway linking Tel Aviv with Jerusalem, the city's sole supply route. Initially, they were successful in cutting off supplies and controlled several strategic vantage points overlooking the sole highway linking Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, enabling them to fire at convoys going to the city. By late March 1948, the vital road that connected Tel Aviv to western Jerusalem, where about 16% of all Jews in the Palestinian region lived, was cut off and under siege.

The Haganah decided to launch a major military counteroffensive named Operation Nachshon to break the siege of Jerusalem. This was the first large-scale military operation of what would evolve into the Arab-Israeli conflict over the ensuing months, years, and decades. On 6 April the Haganah and its strike force, the Palmach, in an offensive to secure strategic points, took al-Qastal, an important roadside town 2 kilometers west of Deir Yassin. But intense fighting lasted for days more as control of that key village remained contested.

Throughout the siege on Jerusalem, Jewish convoys tried to reach the city to alleviate the food shortage, which, by April, had become critical. On 9 April 1948, IZL-Lehi forces attacked Deir Yassin, as part of Operation Nachshon to break the siege of western Jerusalem. The levels of provocation, military necessity and authority justifying the action remain controversial, and the various accounts are listed.

Preparation for the battle

Deir Yassin's importance to Jewish forces

File:Battleplan.jpg

IZL-Lehi battle plan for Deir Yassin

Deir Yassin was located north west of Givat Shaul and situated on a hill about 2600 feet high, near the entrance that commanded a wide view of vicinity and was located less than a mile from Jerusalem. The pathway connecting the town to nearby Givat Shaul and the elevation of the hills in the area made control of the town attractive for protecting an airstip.

Not wishing to endanger itself, it had concluded a local peace pact with Givat Shaul that was approved by Yitzhak Navon, who headed the Arab division of Haganah intelligence, and David Shaltiel, the regional Haganah commander. The pact was temporary and not recognized by the Haganah Command.

On 2 April to 4 April, 1948 Friday and Saturday nights, gunfire from the Deir Yassin area raked the adjacent Jewish neighborhoods of Beit Hakerem and Bayit Vegan from the direction of Deir Yassin, Ein Kerem, as well as from the direction of Quloniya.⁴ On Sunday, 4 April, commander Shaltiel received an urgent message from the intelligence officer of the Haganah's Etzioni division: "There's a gathering in Deir Yassin. Armed men left [from Deir Yassin] in the direction of [the nearby town of] lower Motza, northwest of Givat Shaul. They are shooting at passing cars."²⁶ That same day, the deputy commander of theHaganah's Beit Horon brigade, Michael Hapt reported to Shaltiel: "A [Jewish] passenger car from Motza was attacked near the flour mill, below Deir Yassin, and is stopped there. There is rifle fire upon it. You too send an armoured vehicle with weapons. There is concern that the road is cut off."²⁵

An armoured vehicle carrying Lehi fighters was also attacked at the same spot that day. A Haganah intelligence officer who described the incident to his superiors reported that according to Lehi officer David Gottlieb, those of his men who disembarked from their vehicle to return fire said that the attackers appeared to be Arab soldiers rather than local villagers ⁵⁷. A telegram from Michael Hapt, of the Haganah's Beit Horon brigade, to the Haganah command, at 5:00 P.M. that day, urged: "In order to prevent [an attack] on lower Motza, cutting off the road to Jerusalem, and capture of position south of Tzova, Deir Yassin must be captured."²⁷

Deir Yassin's importance to Arab forces

Dier Yassin was also regarded as an important strategic area for the Arab Liberation Army, which repeatedly attempted to station troops in the town, or passed through it toward al-Qastal. On 13 March Mordehai Gihon, a senior intelligence officer, reported "One hundred and fify men, mostly Iraqis, entered Deir Yassin. The inhabitants are leaving, for fear of the foreign troops and reprisal operations by the Jews.". Gihon reported plans of an imminent attack to Haganah Headquarters in this same report, but Yitzhak Levi of the Haganah Intelligence did not see the report until after the attack on Dier Yassin. ⁹

Shortly before the battle of Deir Yassin, there was additional news that Mordechai Gihon's lookouts reported that numerous armed men were moving between Ein Kerem and Deir Yassin. Some of the soldiers were wearing Iraqi uniforms, and while many of them had entered Deir Yassin, only a few had returned to Ein Kerem.²⁸ Just hours before the IZL-Lehi action against Deir Yassin began, Shaltiel cabled his colleague Shimon Avidan: "The Arabs in Deir Yassin have trained a mortar on the highway in order to shell the convoy [bringing supplies to besieged Jewish portions of Jerusalem."²⁹

According to other accounts, such as Yitzhak Levi's, the villagers would do their best to stay out of direct confrontation with the Haganah by opposing the stationing of large detachments of foreign troops in their village.¹⁰

Timeline

• 11 January: an Arab group tried to set up a base in the village. But the inhabitants resisted this with force which led to the miller's son getting killed. In the end the attempt was frustrated.⁵³

• 27 January: a force commanded by Abdel Khader El-Husseini Suleiman. Again the villagers declined and the force had to leave. ⁵⁴

• 23 March: the Haganah received a report stating that 150 Iraqi and Syrian troops had entered the village and the villagers were leaving. Opposition from the villagers forced the troops to withdraw weeks later.⁵⁵

• 7 April: the Haganah intelligence reported that three days earlier the elders of Deir Yassin and Ein Kareem had met Kemal Erikat (Abdel Kader's deputy) who proposed to bring foreign troops into the villages. The elders of Deir Yassin rejected the proposal.⁵⁶

Abba Eban later stated that Qastel and Deir Yassin "were interconnected militarily, reinforcements passing from Dir Yassin to al-Qastal during the fierce engagement for [Kastel].":

"Deir Yassin was an integral and inseparable episode in the battle for Jerusalem... [Arab forces] were attempting to cut the only highway linking Jerusalem with Tel Aviv and the outside world. It had cut the pipeline upon which the defenders depended for water. Palestinian Arab contingents, stiffened by men of the regular Iraqi army, had seized vantage points overlooking the Jerusalem road and from them were firing on trucks that tried to reach the beleaguered city with vital food-stuffs and supplies. Dir Yassin, like the strategic hill and village of Qastel, was one of these vantage points. In fact, the two villages were interconnected militarily, reinforcements passing from Dir Yassin to Kastel during the fierce engagement for [Kastel] hill." ¹¹

Planning overview

Until Operation Nachshon, both the IZL and Lehi had only conducted low intensity warfare against British targets and Arab irregulars. While the Haganah was engaged in the battle for Qastel, the Irgun and Lehi commanders, Mordechai Ra'naan and Yehoshua Zettler met to plan a joint IZL-Lehi offensive to help lift the siege of Jerusalem. Zettler suggested attacking the village of Sheikh Jerakh and Shaufat to revenge the attack on Atarot on 25 March and and thus link Mt. Scopus and Ne'ev Yaakov to Jerusalem. After IZL scouts confirmed heavily entrenched British and Arab positions in the villages that would result in heavy losses and defeat, both jointly decided that Deir Yassin was a strategic objective the organizations should take, and requested the Haganah to coordinate with their first major planned offensive. ⁴³

Irgun and Lehi meet

After Zettler and Rana'an had decided together to attack Deir Yassin, the representatives of the two organizations met. The men listed at the meeting were operations officer Yehoshua Gal and Ben-Zion Cohen, who commanded the Irgun attack force, and IZL platoon commander Yehuda Lapidot. On the Lehi side was Operations officer Mordehai Ben-Uzia, commander of the Lehi attack force, and officers Petachia ("Yoed") Zelivansky and David Zamir. Their plan was was to attack at dawn, with Lehi attacking the village from the north and IZL attacking from the east. Deciding against the element of surprise, the IZL force was to be led by an armored car with a loud speaker to the outskirts of the town before the attack, to call on the inhabitants to surrender and tell them that the road to Ein Kerem was open. A third IZL force would take up positions on present day Mount Herzl and would block the road of Arab reinforcements that were liable to come from Ein Kerem and Malcha. At the meeting, Yehuda Lapidot said that some Lehi people suggested killing the inhabitants who did not run away after being warned, in order to scare the Arabs all over the Mandate, and to raise the morale of the Jews in Jerusalem, who had been attacked in Atarot and killed in Gush Etzion; The IZL commanders opposed the suggestion of the Lehi people, and the commanders decided against it. Finally, it was decided that the IZL would supply most of the weapons, which included, thirty rifles, thirty five home-made IZL Sten guns, and three machine guns, while Lehi would supply the explosives and pistols. ⁴⁵.

Coordination with Haganah

After the plan was set, they contacted David Shaltiel, the Haganah regional commander and asked for his approval. Shaltiel first wrote that because the immediate danger came from other villages, the Irgun and Lehi should set up operations "in Bayit Vagan, and from there.. to take over Ein Kerem, which is providing Arab reinforcements to the Qastel."¹.

Both Irgun and Lehi disagreed. Mordechai Rana'an, explained that "...Deir Yassin controlled the last segment of the road at the entrance to Jerusalem. Conquering the Qastel would not have solved the problem, since the Arabs could block the road near Deir Yassin." ⁵ Next day, Shaltiel sent a letter of approval noting that "the capture of Deir Yassin and its holding are one stage in our general plan." and that he had "no objection to your carrying out the operation" providing that the village is held intact and with its inhabitants, so that Arab forces could not occupy the abandoned and destroyed houses and ruin the general plan for establishing an airfield in the area.²

Disagreement

Shaltiel's approval was met with internal resistance from junior Palmach officers, such as Meir Pa'il and Yitzhak Levi, head of the Jerusalem branch of Haganah Intelligence. Meir Pa'il objected to ending the agreement, and Yitzchak Levi proposed that the inhabitants should be notified that the truce was over, but Shaltiel refused to endanger the operation by warning them.³ Due to the ideological differences between the Labor Zionist Palmach and the Revisionist Zionist Irgun and Lehi, there was considerable rivalry between the two groups, and Meir Pa'il, an ardent Palmachist, detested them and had previously been assigned to units responsible for combatting both groups. According to his account, he requested to join the attack to spy on the capabilities of the Irgun and Lehi to "know what is their real military performance." and contacted Haganah Intelligence to be attached to the unit, although by his own account, no one in the battle remembers seeing him ⁷.

The original date for the attack was set at 7 April, to coincide with the battle for al-Qastal, but due to delays, the Deir Yassin was attacked two days later.

The battle

First advance

The attack force consisted of about 132 men, 72 from Irgun and 65 from Lehi, as well as some civilians for support. The first of the Jewish fighting units to reach Deir Yassin was, as planned, led by a truck armed with a loudspeaker, with an "Iraqi-born Jew, who spoke fluent Arabic, [and] called out to the residents to leave via the western exit from Deir Yassin, which the attackers had left clear for that purpose." ¹²

From Givat Shaul a Lehi unit, with an attached photographer and allegedly accompanied by Meir Pa'il approached Deir Yassin. One Irgun unit moved towards Deir Yassin from the east, while a second approached it from the south. At 4:45 a.m. the fighting started when concealed Irgunists encountered an armed villager.¹³

A few minutes before 5:00AM, the loud speaker truck was hit by Arab gunfire and careened into a ditch 30 metres away from the village ¹². Throughout the fight individual soldiers, and those from the truck who joined the battle, called out in Arabic through personal loudspeakers for the inhabitants to flee ¹⁴, and many did, although the loudspeaker truck had minimum effect. ¹⁵

While both Irgun and Lehi commanders had anticipated many residents would flee, and those remaining would surrender after token resistance, both groups of Jewish fighters, entering the town from different sides, immediately encountered fierce volleys of Arab rifle fire. Rifle and machine gun fire from the village inflicted heavy casualties and drove off some of the Irgunists.

Irgun deputy commander Michael Harif, one of the first to enter Deir Yassin, later recalled how, early in the battle, "I saw a man in khaki run ahead. I thought he was one of us, I ran after him and told him, 'Move ahead to that house!' Suddenly he turned, pointed his weapon at me and fired. He was an Iraqi soldier. I was wounded in the leg". ¹⁷

Haganah support

On the nearby Sharafa ridge, the Haganah's Mordechai Gihon watched as a stream of Arab fighters and civilians fled from Deir Yassin, and as Arab reinforcements from Ein Kerem and Malcha began advancing toward the town from the south. "We fired bursts from the Spandau machine-gun onto the road," Gihon reported to his superiors. "We hit Arabs fleeing from Deir Yassin and we blocked their way. We prevented the advance of the reinforcements, and we also might have hit some IZL men who entered our line of fire. At about 8:30 a.m. we returned to Givat Shaul." Haganah men in adjoining areas also sprayed gunfire in the same direction, to prevent the reinforcements from advancing.⁶⁰

Resistance and close quarter combat

Intense Arab firepower caused the fighters' advance into Deir Yassin to be very slow. Reuven Greenberg reported later that "the Arabs fought like lions and excelled at accurate sniping". He added that "[Arab] women ran from the houses under fire, collected the weapons which had fallen from the hands of Arab fighters who had been wounded, and brought them back into the houses". ²²

In certain cases, after storming a house, dead Arab women were found with guns in their hands, a sign they had taken part in the battle. ²⁰

Ezra Yachin recalled, "To take a house, you had either to throw a grenade or shoot your way into it. If you were foolish enough to open doors, you got shot down -- sometimes by men dressed up as women, shooting out at you in a second of surprise".¹⁹

Briefings before the battle had stated that most of the houses in Deir Yassin had wooden doors, so, while trying to storm them, the fighters were surprised to discover the doors were made of iron, leaving no recourse but to blow them open with powerful explosives, in the process inadvertently killing or wounding some inhabitants. The Lehi forces slowly advanced house by house.²⁰

Patchiah Zalivensky, the Lehi commander of the southern force, recalled that among the Arab soldiers killed by his unit was a Yugoslavian Muslim officer who deserted the Trans-Jordanian Arab Legion.

The villagers sniper fire from higher positions in the west contained effectively the attack, especially from the mukhtar's (mayor's) house. Some Lehi units went for help from the Haganah's Camp Schneller in Jerusalem.¹⁷

Moshe Nachum Mizrachi, An IZL fighter, recounts that as he advanced he heard a shout "Andak!" (Halt) and then "we lay down. One shot was fired at us. We advanced, and then a round of automatic fire was fired at us. We started storming the village. They (the Arabs) had positions in the houses and on the roofs. We heard rounds of fire...Arabs moved between the positions. We heard a rustle and saw a group of seven soldiers dress in khaki with Kaffiyeh’s with white and red dots on their heads, belonging to the gangs of marauders. We shot at them and they spread out. And then we were shot at from the windows and we were afraid to move. I was wounded. Each minute seemed to me like an hour. When we gathered I saw many wounded, and the commander of the operation was wounded in his foot. I saw an Arab boy crying, and I gave him over to an Arab woman." ¹⁶

Final advance

File:Diryasin.jpg

Deir Yassin after the attack.

Meanwhile, the Irgun soldiers on the other side of the village, were having a very difficult time. By 7:00 a.m., discouraged by the Arab resistance and their own increasing casualties, Irgun commanders relayed a message to the Lehi camp that they were seriously considering retreating from the town.

Lehi commanders relayed back that they had already entered the village and expected victory soon.

The large number of wounded was a big problem for the IZL-Lehi because they had to be evacuated but could be fired upon if they tried. Meret called the Magen David Adom station for an ambulance that came to the battle area, and requested a Haganah unit returning from Deir Yassin to Motza to aid the dozens of wounded IZL and Lehi fighters.

"In order to extricate the wounded, we had to eliminate the sources of gunfire," recalled Haganah unit leader Moshe Eren. Kalman Rosenblatt, a member of one of the two Haganah units that entered the village to assist the wounded, said: "We threw hand grenades into the houses before we entered them." The attackers took beds out of the houses, laid the wounded on them and ordered the inhabitants of the village, including women and old people, to carry the beds to the ambulance and to screen them. They believed the Arabs would not shoot their own people; however, they did.¹⁷

The Irgun quickly arranged to receive a supply of explosives from their base in Givat Shaul, and started blasting their way into house after house. In certain instances, the force of the explosions collapsed whole parts of houses, burying Arab soldiers as well as civilians who were still inside.

Commander Rana'an relates that his men treated each house as a fortified position. "We blew up one house every half hour. In this way we got to the house that was near where ‘Yiftach’ (Commander Yehuda Segal) was lying. It turned out that he was dead. Not far from his body a young fighter holding a Bren machine gun in his hands took up a position. We warned the inhabitants of the house that we were about to blow it up, and they, having seen what happened to the inhabitants of the other houses, came out to us with their hands up. There were nine people there, including a woman and a boy. The chap holding the Bren suddenly squeezed the trigger and held it. A round of shots hit the group of Arabs. While he was shooting he yelled "This is for Yiftach!" ’What have you done?’ we shouted at him. One of them was carrying a rifle and tried to shoot,’ he answered. Other fighters confirmed afterwards that indeed one of the Arabs was about to shoot." ⁴⁶

At about 10:00 a.m. a sizeable Palmach unit from the Haganah arrived. They brought an armored vehicle and a two-inch mortar. The mortar was fired three times at the mukhtar's house which silenced its snipers. The Palmach unit managed to clear the village of serious resistance and Lehi officer David Gottlieb saw the Palmach accomplish "in one hour what we could not accomplish in several hours."²¹ The fighting was over at about 11:30 A.M

After the battle, Irgun fighters found a cache of Bren machine guns and ammunition in Deir Yassin. Yehuda Lapidot, deputy commander of the IZL force in Deir Yassin, later recalled: "A cache of ammunition for English rifles which we found in the village saved the day. We filled the clips for the Bren [machine-gun], distributed weapons to the boys and fought on." In another house, IZL fighter Yehoshua Gorodenchik discovered an additional 20 clips of ammunition for the Bren gun. Lehi soldiers David Gottlieb, Moshe Barzili, and Moshe Idelstein found a huge quantity of Czech rifle bullets which did not fit their rifles; they offered to trade 6,000 of them to the Haganah for 3,000 British bullets.

Prisoner accounts

There was an operational agreement during the planning stages on how to deal with the prisoners. Ben-Zion Cohen, the IZL force commander, said that there were differences of opinion regarding the question of what to do with prisoners, while most of those present at the meeting said all the men and all the civilians who would fight, regardless of age, or sex should be killed, but he and Lapidot disagreed with harming civilians. Finally "it was decided to give strict orders regarding prisoners, to avoid harming them, unless they resisted, and to transfer them to Arab villages." Lapidot said that the IZL headquarters in Jerusalem ordered him and his officers to act according to the Geneva convention, and that the IZL members accepted this order⁴⁴.

During the battle, in numerous instances Arabs emerged from the houses and surrendered; over 100 were taken prisoner by day's end. At least two Haganah members on the scene reported the Lehi repeatedly using a loudspeaker to implore the residents to surrender ¹⁸.

In certain cases, Arabs pretending to surrender revealed hidden weapons and shot at their would-be Jewish captors.²⁰ An Arab man disguised as a woman was brought to the Lehi headquarters, and one of the people present shot him in the head. Gideon Sarig, who witnessed this incident, related that some Jewish civilians threw the body of the victim into a fire.²⁴

Allegations of executions

On 9 April at 12:00 P.M., twenty prisoners were taken on the village trucks to a victory parade in the Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem before they were released in East Jerusalem. They were then loaded on two trucks and driven to a Lehi camp in Jerusalem's Sheikh Bader neighborhood. According to the camp guards, the Arabs were given food and water, held there until the late afternoon, and then transported to a nearby Arab section of the city and released.Harry Levin, a Haganah broadcaster, reported seeing "three trucks driving slowly up and down King George V Avenue bearing men, women, and children, their hand above their heads, guarded by Jews armed with Sten guns and rifles." ²³ According to Lehi's Moshe Barzili, the purpose of the prisoner transport was "strictly humanitarian," to bring the survivors to an Arab area. Shimon Monita, the Haganah spy in Lehi, contended that the IZL and Lehi commanders deliberately chose a travel route that would take the truck through central Jerusalem, hoping that the sight of enemy prisoners "would lift the morale of the Jewish public," which had been depressed by the siege that had cut them off from much of the rest of the country.⁶⁰

Mordechai Gihon reported a different account. On 10 April he states that "Their commander says that the order was to capture the adult males and to send the women and children to Motza. In the afternoon (of 9 April) the order was changed and became to kill all the prisoners....The adult males were taken to town in trucks and paraded in the city streets, then taken back to the site [Lehi camp in Jerusalem] and killed with rifle and machine-gun fire. ⁶²

In 1952 Yona Ben-Sasson, a Haganah officer, testified that several hotheads considered the idea of taking prisoners to the quarry and killing them, but that he personally talked them out of it. ⁶¹

Modern study

In 1987, Birzeit University published a report about Dier Yassin stating that trenches had been dug at the entry to the village, and that more than 100 men had been trained and equipped with rifles and Bren guns. A local guard force had been set up, with 40 inhabitants guarding the village every night. ⁵⁹ Villagers also testified that trained Deir Yassin men fought at al-Qastal and Motza ⁸.

Accounts of battle and aftermath

The battle of Dier Yassin, and the IZL-Lehi's actions has sparked controversies and allegations of mutilation, rape and premeditated mass killing. Historical accounts has specified that both sides inflated and or falsified these allegations for propaganda purposes. The IZL-Lehi claimed that about 250 villagers were killed to scare the Arab population into fleeing³⁰, and the Arab Liberation Army, decided to use the inflated casualties to their advantage by rallying the Arab population and claimed, depending on what suited them, either that one hundred were killed, or that hundreds were killed and mutilated. For example, The first casualty numbers were said to be about 254. Irgun commander Ra'anan spread this number to reporters and it quickly stuck. Historical accounts now say that Raanan's figure was a deliberate exaggeration, because as he later explained: "I told the reporters that 254 were killed so that a big figure would be published, and so that Arabs would panic." ³¹ On the other side, Dr. Hussein Khalidi, the secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered Hazen Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service, to claim that children were "murdered, [and that] pregnant women were raped; all sorts of atrocities."³²

Nonetheless, some historians, such as Benny Morris, and eye witness accounts have claimed that certain of these allegations were carried out after the battle, while other eyewitness accounts claim the contrary. These conflicting accounts are given below.

Allegations of mutilations, rape and theft

One of the most graphic accounts was given by Benny Morris in his book "Righteous Victims":

• ...."men, women, and children were mowed down as they emerged from houses; individuals were taken aside and shot" (according to Mordechai Ra´anan, the IZL head of operation, quoted in Milstein p. 276, which is in turn quoted in ³³ )
• ...."the conquest of the village was carried out with great cruelty. Whole families -women, old people, children -were killed, and there were piles of dead [in various places]. Some of the prisoners moved to places of incarceration, including women and children, were murdered viciously by their captors...." (reported by the Jerusalem Shai commander Yitzhak Levy, April 12, IDF Archives 5254/49//372, quoted in ³³ )
• ...."Lehi members tell of the barbaric behaviour [hitnahagut barbarit] of the IZL toward the prisoners and the dead. They also relate that the IZL men raped a number of Arab girls and murdered them afterward (we don´t know if this is true)." (Reported by Yitzhak Levy, April 13, IDF Archives 5254/49//372, quoted in ³³ )
• Mordechai Gihon, a Haganah intelligence officer who entered the village around 3:00 P.M. April 9., saw bodies lowered into caves and a nearby quarry. ⁵² He reported:

...."Before they [i.e. the villagers] were put on the trucks, the IZL and LHI men searched the women, men and children [and] took from them all the jewelry and stole their money. The behaviour toward them was especially barbaric [and included] kicks, shoves with rifle butts, spitting and cursing."

(In "Report on Conquest of Deir Yassin", by "Eliezer" (=Gihon), Apr. 10., 1948, IDF Archives 500/48//29, quoted in ³³ )

On 11 April, Jacques de Reynier, a French-Swiss representative of the International Red Cross reported that "One body was a woman who must have been eight months pregnant, hit in the stomach, with powder burns on her dress indicating she'd been shot point-blank." ³⁴ Reynier's account is confirmed by Fahimi Zeidan, a villager who reports that "They then called my brother Mahmoud and shot him in our presence, and when my mother screamed and bent over my brother (she was carrying my little sister Khadra who was still being breast fed) they shot my mother too."³⁵ Another villager, Haleem Eid, a woman, saw "a man shoot a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh who was nine months pregnant."³⁶ Mohammed Aref Samir, another villager testified that a pregnant woman, who was coming back with her son from the bakery, was "murdered and her belly was smashed". ³⁷

Counter claims

On the other hand, Dr. Alfred Engel, who accompanied Jacques de Reynier of the Red Cross, and numerous reports by every villager who was interviewed years later, denied reports of both mutilations and rapes.

Dr. Engel reported that he "did not see any signs of defilement, mutilation, or rape."³⁸ Daniel Spicehandler, a member of a Haganah unit sent to assist the IZL, said later: "So far as I saw, there was no rape or looting." ³⁹ An Arab survivor of the Deir Yassin battle, Muhammad Arif Sammour, in an interview with the author told that there were no sexual attacks. Silver wrote: "Sammour, who has no reason to minimize the atrocities, is convinced that there were no sexual assault: 'I didn't hear or see anything of rape or attacks on pregnant women. None of the other survivors ever talked to me about that kind of thing. If anybody told you that, I don't believe it.'" ⁵⁸ Sammour's statement is corroborated by the testimony of two physicians, Drs. Z. Avigdori and A. Droyan. At the request of the Jewish Agency, on Monday, 12 April Avigdori and Droyan were sent by the Histadrut Medical Committee [the [[Labor Zionist]]-affiliated trade union], in Jerusalem, to Deir Yassin. They examined the bodies and reported that "all the bodies were clothed, the limbs were intact, and no sign of mutilation was visible on them."⁴⁰

On 1 April a BBC/WGBH documentary on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, interviewing Hazam Nusseibeh of the Palestine Broadcasting Service news in 1948, admitted that he was told by Hussein Khalidi to fabricate the atrocity claims, and that Dier Yassin villagers protested against those claims. For example, Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948, said "We said, 'there was no rape." He goes on to say that Khalidi replied "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." ⁴¹ Another villager, Mohammed Radwan, who fought and survived the Deir Yassin battle, said that "I know when I speak that God is up there and God knows the truth and God will not forgive the liars, It's all lies. There were no pregnant women who were slit open. It was propaganda that... Arabs put out so Arab armies would invade. They ended up expelling people from all of Palestine on the rumor of Deir Yassin." ⁴²

Accounts of dead and wounded

From 1948 to the present, there has been much controversy associated with the deaths of civilians in Deir Yassin and this is incarnated in the large discrepencies dealing with the casualties and the manner and context in which they were killed. Several factors contribute to the controversy. The fog of war accounts for some of the discrepancies, for example the attackers did not have radios to coordinate between themselves, contained many poorly equipped and ill-disciplined troops, and third party observers did not get to the scene until at least a day after the battle, which contributed to rumors of exaggerated numbers and descriptions. Participants on both sides did nothing to disprove such rumors. All the parties had an interest in publicizing a high Arab casualty figure: the Haganah, to tarnish the Irgun and Lehi, their main ideological rivals; the Arabs and the British to blacken the reputation of the Jews; the Irgun and Lehi to provoke and frighten Arabs into fleeing the Mandate. Numbers have been quoted as low as 93 and, keeping with propaganda purposes, as high as 1,500. The first account of the dead, 254, quickly spread as an official number by the BBC, various journalists' pieces, British CID reports, and even into Meir Pa'il's report to Haganah command.⁴⁸ Mohammed Radwan, during his interview with Paul Holmes of the Middle East Times, stated only 93 people were killed, while representatives of each of the five clans in Deir Yassin, during a meeting a little bit after the battle put the number of dead or missing to 116.⁴⁷ Yisrael Natach, member of the Shai Arab department, explained how the battle was used for propaganda purposes. During the battle, he and his partner were sitting in a cafe in Ein Kerem, dressed as Arabs:

"Refugees arrive from Deir Yassin and relate that the Jews found out that Arab warriors had disguised themselves as women. The Jews searched the women too. One of the people being checked noticed that he had been caught, took out a pistol and shot the Jewish commander. His friends, crazy with anger, shot in all directions and killed the Arabs in the area. I drew a picture of a Jewish soldier stabbing an Arab woman with a bayoneted rifle. I didn’t explain that he did not stab, and that the woman was a man. I submitted this drawing for publication in the newspapers, through the Arab headquarters in Jerusalem, with the addition of information, according to which in Deir Yassin 600 women, 500 men and 400 children were slaughtered. I exaggerated on purpose, to scare the Arabs. My cartoon was published in one of the Arab newspapers."⁴⁶

It is now widely believed by historians that the graphic journalistic coverage of the battle and the exaggerated way the casualties were reported, unified and invigorated Arab anger against the Jews, indirectly contributing to the Hadassah medical convoy massacre, in which 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and patients were killed and was a contributing factor for the Kfar Etzion massacre later on.

The most comprehensive study was commissioned by Birzeit University, whose researchers tracked down the surviving Arab eyewitnesses to the attack and interviewed them. Their findings report that "for the most part, we have gathered the information in this monograph during the months of February-May 1985 from Deir Yassin natives living in the Ramallah region, who were extremely cooperative," listing by name twelve former Deir Yassin residents whom they had interviewed concerning the battle. The study continued: "The [historical] sources which discuss the Deir Yassin massacre unanimously agree that number of victims ranges between 250-254; however, when we examined the names which appear in the various sources, we became absolutely convinced that the number of those killed does not exceed 120, and that the [Irgun-Lehi] exaggerated the numbers in order to frighten Palestinian residents into leaving their villages and cities without resistance.". A list of 107 people killed and twelve wounded was given.⁴⁹

Manner of death

Historical accounts have indicated that "most of the Arabs in Deir Yassin were killed not after the conquest, but during the battle." ⁴⁸ For example, Ayish Zeidan, a resident of the village and a survivor of the fighting there, stated: "The Arab radio talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true... I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters. " ⁵⁰ Most of the accounts of third party observers and their testimony come either days after the fighting or after the battle. Based on third party accounts, bodies of dead villagers lay in houses, many were shot at close range, consistent with door-to-door fighting. ⁵¹

Modern debate

Contemporary reports of the Deir Yassin incident had considerable impact on the developments and outcome of the larger war and on the regional conflict of which it was a part. It is widely credited with greatly stimulating Palestinian Arab refugee flight (see Palestinian Exodus).

Deir Yassin very quickly became an ideological bait in the propaganda war between Israel and the Arab states, and between the competing Haganah and Irgun-Lehi factions.

In 1969, the Israeli Foreign Ministry published a pamphlet "Background Notes on Current Themes: Deir Yassin" in English denying that there had been a massacre at Deir Yassin, and calling the story "part of a package of fairy tales, for export and home consumption".

The pamphlet led to a series of derivative articles giving the same message, especially in America. Menachem Begin's Herut party disseminated a Hebrew translation in Israel, causing a widespread but largely non-public debate within the Israeli establishment.

Literature

• Milstein, Uri (1998) [1987]. "Chapter 16: Deir Yassin". History of the War of Independence IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision (in Hebrew and English version translated and edited by Alan Sacks). Lanhan, Maryland: University Press of America. pp. 343–396. ISBN 0761814892.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
• Morris, Benny (1989). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521330289.
• Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521811201; ISBN 0521009677 (pbk.).
• Morris, Benny (2005). "The Historiography of Deir Yassin". Journal of Israeli History. 24 (1): 79–107.

External links

• Irgun - Essay by Prof. Yehuda Lapidot from the IZL (Irgun) site
• Deir Yassin Remembered - a non-profit organisation with the stated goal to "do justice to the victims of the Deir Yassin massacre"
• www.us-israel.org - Essay by Mitchell Bard.
• [1] - Essay by Paul Holmes
• Zionist Organisation of America - Essay by Sid Zion.
• PEACE Middle East Dialog Group
• Webpage opposing the massacre theses
• Compilation of sources and essays (PDF, 188 pages)

References

• ^Note 1 : Yitzak Levi, "Nine Measures", p. 341).
• ^Note 2 : Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948, (OH: New American Library, Inc., 1970), p. 141.
• ^Note 3 : Pa'il and Isseroff, "Meir Pa'il's Eyewitness Account"; Levi, Nine Measures, p. 341
• ^Note 4 : Davar Front page, April 4 1948
• ^Note 5 : Milstein The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision, Zmora - Bitan, Tel-Aviv 1991, p. 256.
• ^Note 6 : "Dayr Yasin," Bir Zeit University
• ^Note 7 : Uri Milstein, "Deir Yassin"
• ^Note 8 : Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 265
• ^Note 9 : Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 257
• ^Note 10 : Levi, Yitzhak, "Nine Measures" op. cit. p. 340.
• ^Note 11 : Eban, Abba, "Background Notes on Current Themes" - No.6: Dir Yassin
• ^Note 12 : Levi, Yitzhak, op. cit. p 342.
• ^Note 13 : Milstein, Uri, "Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.262
• ^Note 14 : Levi, Yitzhak, op. cit. p 342.
• ^Note 15 : Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 262.
• ^Note 16 : "The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 263
• ^Note 17 : "Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.262-265, Milstein
• ^Note 18 : Milstein, p.263, interview with Uri Brenner
• ^Note 19 : Lynne Reid Banks, "A Torn Country" "An Oral History of the Israeli War of Independence", New York: Franklin Watts, 1982, p. 62.)
• ^Note 20 : Testimony of Yehoshua Gorodenchik, MZ
• ^Note 21 : Information from "Edge of the Sword", p.450, Lorch
• ^Note 22 : Information from Testimony of Reuven Greenberg.
• ^Note 23 : Statement of Ben-Zion Cohen, file 1/10 4-K, Jabotinsky Archives; "Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.276, Milstein; "Deir Yassin", Monograph No. 4, p.56, Kanani and Zitawi; "Jerusalem Embattled", p.5 Levin.)
• ^Note 24 : Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 267.
• ^Note 25 : Milstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 88/17, "From Sa'ar," 4 April 1948, 10:00 a.m.
• ^Note 26 : Milstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 88/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948, 10:00 a.m.
• ^Note 27 : Milstein, p. 258, citing "Operations Log - Arza," 4 April 1948, 17:00 hours, Broadcast #562, Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 88/17.
• ^Note 28 : Milstein, p.258 (interview with Mordechai Gihon).
• ^Note 29 : Milstein, p.258, citing Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 228/3, Operation Log, 9 April 1948, 2:40 a.m.
• ^Note 30 : "Paradoxically, the Jews say about 250 out of 400 village inhabitants [were killed], while Arab survivors say only 110 of 1,000." Kurzman, Dan, "Genesis" 1948, (OH: New American Library, Inc., 1970)
• ^Note 31 : Information from Out of Crisis Comes Decision, p.269, Milstein)
• ^Note 32 : Hazen Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's Arabic news in 1948, was interviewed for the BBC television series "Israel and the Arabs: the 50-year conflict."
• ^Note 33 : From "Righteous Victims, p. 208" by Benny Morris
• ^Note 34 : Information from Jacques de Reynier, "A Jerusalem un drapeau flottait sur la ligne de feu" p. 74, Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem! p. 278
• ^Note 35 : Information from Fahimi Zeidan, quoted by Kanani and Zitawi, "Deir Yassin, Monograph No. 4," 55.
• ^Note 36 : Information from Kanani and Zitawi, "Deir Yassin, Monograph No. 4," 55.)
• ^Note 37 : Milstein, Uri op. cit. p. 272
• ^Note 38 : Milstein, pp.269-270 (interview with Alfred Engel, 7 December 1987).
• ^Note 39 : Spicehandler testimony in Martin, op.cit.
• ^Note 40 : David Shaltiel, Jerusalem 1948, p.140; Aryeh Yitzhaki, "Deir Yassin--Not Through a Warped Mirror," Yediot Ahronot, 14 April 1972, p.17.
• ^Note 41 : BBC/WGBH documentary "Israel and the Arabs: the 50-year conflict."
• ^Note 42 : Excerpts from Mohammed Radwan interview, reported by Paul Holmes, Middle East Times, April 20 1998
• ^Note 43 : The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision pages 90-92, Section 3
• ^Note 44 : Jabotinsky Institute, From the testimony of Yehuda Lapidot and Ben Zion Cohen
• ^Note 45 : The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision p. 50
• ^Note 46 : The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 276
• ^Note 47 : Muhammad Arif Sammour, quoted in Begin: The Haunted Prophet, by Eric Silver
• ^Note 48 : The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 269
• ^Note 49 : Information from Beit Zit University Study p.57
• ^Note 50 : Excerpt from Interview with Ayish Zeidan, the Daily Telegraph, April 8 1998
• ^Note 51 : Information from Uri Milstein, Out of Crisis came Decision, p. 279
• ^Note 52 : Yitzhak Levi, Nine Measures, p. 343
• ^Note 53 : Information from Chashmonai Diary (IDF Archives) 12 January Paragraph 9;IDF Archives 2504/49/16 15
• ^Note 54 : Information from Chashmonai Diary (IDF Archives) 28 January Paragraph 10; IDF Archives 446/48/20 66;
• ^Note 55 : Information from Yitzhak Levi, "Nine Measures", p.340)
• ^Note 56 : Information from IDF Archives 4944/49/520 42; 446/48/22 60,65;500/48/29 409; 446/48/18 57;
• ^Note 57 : Testimony of David Gottlieb, MZ; Milstein, pp.257-258, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 21/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948.
• ^Note 58 : Muhammad Arif Sammour, quoted in Begin: The Haunted Prophet, by Eric Silver
• ^Note 59 : Knaana Sherif, The Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948 - Deir Yassin. Bir Zeit University, Documentation and Research Department 1987
• ^Note 60 : Milstein, p.264, (interview with Mordechai Gihon and "Report of Etzioni intelligence officer").
• ^Note 61 : Milstein, p.275 (interview with Yona Ben-Sasson.

Category:1948 Arab-Israeli War Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict Deir Yassin 1948

The Deir Yassin massacre refers to the killing of between 100 and 120 villagers, mainly old people, women and children. during and after the battle at the village of Deir Yassin (also written as Dayr Yasin or Dir Yassin) near Jerusalem in Palestine by Jewish irregular forces between April 9 and April 11, 1948. This occurred during a period of increasing local Arab-Jewish fighting about one month prior to the regional outbreak of the much larger 1948 Middle East war. Reports of the event and the exaggerated number of casualties had considerable contemporary impact on the conflict, and were a major cause of Arab civilian flight from Palestine. The circumstances, nature, and evaluation of the Deir Yassin incident remain a source of discussion decades later.

The modern neighborhood Har Nof in Jerusalem is partially built on the location of the site of Deir Yassin

Historical background

The Deir Yassin event occurred during the so-called "civil war" period of fighting (from December 1947 to mid-May 1948) inside Palestine between Jews and Arabs as British rule dissolved, and while the United Nations General Assembly partition recommendation of November 1947 for Palestine's future governance remained unenforced. This period ended and was replaced by more general regional war when the British Mandate over Palestine ended on 15 May 1948 and at the same time Israel declared its statehood. That broader conflict is more generally known as the Israeli War of Independence or the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

In the years leading up to 1948 tension between Jews and Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine had worsened significantly. Britain had decided to withdraw from Palestine, and the United Nations General Assembly had recommended a partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, which was never effectively implemented as the Arabs rejected it. These factors made Palestine's future uncertain. Violence between Jews and Arabs broke out and by the spring of 1948 Palestine was in a state of civil conflict.

During the winter and spring of 1948, the Arab Liberation Army, composed of Palestinians and volunteers from various Arab countries and sponsored by the Arab League, attacked Jewish communities in Palestine, and Jewish traffic on major roads. This phase of the war became known as "the battle of roads" because the Arab forces mainly concentrated on major roadways in an attempt to cut off Jewish communities from each other. Initially, they were somewhat successful and by late March 1948, the vital road that connected Tel Aviv to western Jerusalem, where about 16% of all Jews in Palestine lived, was cut off and western Jerusalem was under siege.

The Haganah decided to launch a major military counter offensive called Operation Nachshon to break the siege of Jerusalem. This was the first large-scale military operation of what would evolve into the Arab-Israeli conflict over the ensuing months, years, and decades. On April 6 the Haganah and its strike force the Palmach took al-Qastal, an important roadside town 2 kilometers west of Deir Yassin. But intense fighting lasted for days more as control of that key village remained contested.

1948

The Deir Yassin events began with an attack on April 9, 1948, in which several Jewish armed factions seized and occupied the Arab town of Deir Yassin, simultaneous with Jewish attempts to break the siege of western Jerusalem, although the levels of provocation, military necessity and authority justifying the action remain controversial. The village had previously entered into a non-aggression pact with Israel. During the takeover or related holding of the village, according to conclusions drawn from villager oral histories in a 1998 study by Beir Zeit University, between approximately 107 and 120 Palestinian Arab civilians were killed by elements of two Jewish nationalist irregular military organizations. (Certain persons present, such as Meir Pa'il and burial unit commander Yehoshua Arieli have felt the death-toll to be possibly higher; others, e.g. Lehi member and attack veteran Shimon Monita, have felt it to be lower.) Most of the estimated 750 villagers survived the takeover of the village, either by fleeing, or by being captured and then forcibly transported to the Arab-held eastern areas of Jerusalem, and thereafter permanently removed from their original village. Many sources originally reported a far higher death toll (usually around 254) but such numbers have been more recently accepted by most sources as a contemporary exaggeration that was disseminated for a variety of political and practical reasons.

There is still a measure of controversy surrounding the deaths of the villagers [2], with defenders of the record of the attacking forces claiming that the deaths came mostly from unintended consequences of a tough military battle. Nevertheless, most conventional historical sources along with most contemporary reporting and official commentary have treated the event as a massacre involving the infliction of unnecessary deaths and other abuses during or after the battle.

The relatively large number of dead in a single village, the relatively small number of dead attackers (4 to 5), and the relatively low number of reported villagers wounded in relation to deaths additionally attest to the dominant consensus of a "massacre" involving the large-scale killing of captive non-resisting individuals[3].

There were claims of other atrocities during the attack, including the mutilation of the dead, but the evidence is extremely sparse.

The ambush and no-quarter killing of a large number (about 77) of Jewish medical personnel in a convoy headed to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus near Jerusalem by Arab fighters (see Hadassah medical convoy massacre) soon after the events of Deir Yassin is regarded as one immediate act of retaliation by Arab armed groupings.

The main Jewish forces participating in the Deir Yassin event belonged to two underground Jewish paramilitary groups, the Irgun (Etzel) (National Military Organization) and the Lehi (Freedom Fighters of Israel). Both groups were strong ideological nationalists and advocates of aggressive tactics; their eventual political successors would be the Likud coalition of Israel. The massacre is typically ascribed to the Irgun and Lehi groups; participation in the events of Deir Yassin by the more mainstream Jewish Haganah (Defense) organization (the nucleus of the soon-to-be Israeli Army and politically aligned with the eventual Labor Party of Israel) appears to have been mostly limited to a brief but decisive assisting role in the military takeover of the town along with some later intervention to inhibit or replace the Irgun and Lehi, secure the place, and bury the bodies of the dead villagers.

As a result, Deir Yassin also became an issue of mutual recrimination among various Jewish nationalist factions in Palestine and the recrimination has continued through to, and between, their successor political parties in Israel.

Contemporary reports of the Deir Yassin incident had considerable impact on the developments and outcome of the larger war and on the regional conflict of which it was a part. It is widely credited with greatly stimulating Palestinian Arab refugee flight (see Palestinian Exodus).

Fuller discussion of the controversial details of the event is below; much remains debated about the course of events and the rights and wrongs of them.

The Village and Irgun and Lehi Activity

At this time the Irgun and Lehi had not made any major offensive action by their ground forces yet. The guerillas consisted of a mix of hardened veterans and some inexperienced teenagers. The Arab village of Deir Yassin was situated on a hill which overlooked the main highway entering Jerusalem (although a direct line of sight from the village to the highway was blocked by a ridge below). Deir Yassin was also adjacent to a number of Jerusalem's western neighborhoods. The pathway connecting the town to nearby Givat Shaul and the elevation of the hills in the area made control of the town attractive as an airstrip.

Deir Yassin was different from al-Qastel that had recently been attacked by the Haganah, in that it did not participate directly in the conflict. The villagers reportedly wanted to remain neutral in the war and they had repeatedly resisted help and alliances with the Palestinian irregulars. Instead they had made a pact with Haganah to not help the irregulars as long as they were not the target of military operations.

[The inhabitants] had even remained cooperative while the Haganah took the strategic Sharafa ridge between Deir Yassin and the nearby ALA base Ein Karem. Haganah intelligence confirmed after the village had been captured that it in fact had stayed "faithful allies of the western [Jerusalem] sector".

Yoma Ben-Sasson, Haganah commander in Givat Shaul, later recalled that "there was not even one incident between Deir Yassin and the Jews".

The question of foreign Arab (ALA) troops in Deir Yassin

Although the Irgun and Lehi claimed subsequently that foreign combatants were present in the village, all contemporary and later Arab testimonies, including those of the refugees themselves, as well as SHAI's Arab sources, confirm that the villagers were the only combatants present. Menachem Begin claimed in his memoirs that Iraqi troops were present in Deir Yassin, but these were in fact stationed in Ain Karim (Gelber, 2006, p. 311).

• On January 11, an Arab group tried to set up a base in the village. But the inhabitants resisted this with force which led to the miller's son getting killed. In the end the attempt was frustrated.

• On January 27 a force commanded by Abdel Khader El-Husseini Suleiman. Again the villagers resisted and the force had to leave.

• On March 23 the Haganah got a report stating that 150 Iraqi and Syrian troops had entered the village and the villagers were leaving. But the troops had to leave due to determined resistance from the villagers.

• On April 7 the Haganah intelligence reported that three days earlier the elders of Deir Yassin and Ein Kareem had met Kemal Erikat (Abdel Kader's deputy) who proposed to bring foreign troops into the villages. The elders of Deir Yassin rejected the proposal.

Contrasting arguments have been put forth in later writings:-

A theory that has been put forward is that Arab troops passed through Deir Yassin and that it therefore was an important military target. Abba Eban claimed that "In fact, the two villages were interconnected militarily, reinforcements passing from Dir Yassin to Kastel during the fierce engagement for [Kastel]."

Deir Yassin was an integral inseparable episode in the battle for Jerusalem...

A booklet published by Israel's Foreign Ministry of the State on Deir Yassin in 1969, claims that: [Arab forces] were attempting to cut the only highway linking Jerusalem with Tel Aviv and the outside world. It had cut the pipeline upon which the defenders depended for water. Palestinian Arab contingents, stiffened by men of the regular Iraqi army, had seized vantage points overlooking the Jerusalem road and from them were firing on trucks that tried to reach the beleaguered city with vital food-stuffs and supplies. Dir Yassin, like the strategic hill and village of Kastel, was one of these vantage points. In fact, the two villages were interconnected militarily, reinforcements passing from Dir Yassin to Kastel during the fierce engagement for [Kastel] hill.

Emanuel Winston, a Middle East analyst and commentator, write: ... This Arab village in 1948 sat in a key position high on the hill controlling passage on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road. Those villagers were no different than other nearby Arab villagers who were heavily armed, hostile and aggressive. They also hosted a battle group from the Iraqi army. They had incessantly attacked Jewish convoys trying to supply food and medical supplies to Jerusalem which was under siege and cut-off by Arab armies in linkage with those same villagers. They were killing many Jews. Deir Yassin was a staging area for the villagers and regular army from various Arab armies. They were not innocents as proclaimed by the Arab nations or the Jewish Revisionists.

Battle plans

During the battle for Kastel, the Irgun and Lehi took their plan to attack Deir Yassin to Haganah for coordination. Rivalry between them made matters tense. According to Meir Pa'il: The commanders of the underground groups came to Shaltiel [the Haganah district commander], and asked for his approval. Shaltiel was surprised by their choice and asked: "Why go to Deir Yassin? It is a quiet village. There is a non-aggression pact between Givat Shaul and the Mukhtar of Deir Yassin. The village is not a security problem in any way. Our problem is in the battle for the Qastel. I suggest you participate in the operations in that area. I will give you a base in Bayit Vagan, and from there you will take over Ein Kerem, which is providing Arab reinforcements to the Qastel."

The guerillas refused to change their minds and complained that the proposed mission would be too hard for them. Shaltiel ultimately yielded and wrote in a letter to the underground commanders that he allows them to attack the village, provided that they could hold it thereafter.

Shaltiel's consent was met with internal resistance. Meir Pa'il objected to violating the agreement with the village but Shaltiel maintained that he had no power to stop the guerillas. Yitzchak Levi proposed that the inhabitants should be notified that the truce was over but Shaltiel refused to endanger the operation by warning them. During some of the preliminary meetings the idea of a massacre was discussed and rejected. A Lehi proposal suggested "liquidating" them "to show what happens when the IZL [Irgun] and the Lehi set out together."

According to most insider accounts, instructions were given to minimize casualties, some guerillas nonetheless anticipated inciting panic throughout Arab Palestine by their actions in Deir Yassin.

The battle

The attack force consisted of about 132 men, 72 from Irgun and 60 from Lehi as well as a few women to serve as support.

From Givat Shaul a Lehi unit approached Deir Yassin, accompanied with Meir Pa'il and a photographer "to watch their military performance".

One Irgun unit moved towards Deir Yassin from the east, while a second approached it from the south. At 4:45 a.m. the fighting started when concealed Irgunists encountered a village guard.

The road south-westward towards Ein Kerem filled with panicked villagers fleeing.

Villager fire inflicted heavy casualties and drove off the Irgun. The Lehi units advance stopped at the town's center where they were only holding the eastern parts. The attacker's fighting capability matched their progress, weapons failed to work, a few tossed hand-grenades without pulling the plug, and a Lehi unit commander, Amos Keynan, was wounded by his own men.

While both Irgun and Lehi commanders had anticipated many residents would flee, and the remaining would surrender after token resistance, both groups of Jewish fighters, entering the town from different sides, immediately encountered fierce volleys of Arab rifle fire.

Irgun deputy commander Michael Harif, one of the first to enter Deir Yassin, later recalled how, early in the battle, "I saw a man in khaki run ahead. I thought he was one of us, I ran after him and told him, 'Move ahead to that house!' Suddenly he turned, pointed his weapon at me and fired. He was an Iraqi soldier. I was wounded in the leg". Patchiah Zalivensky of Lehi recalled that among the Arab soldiers killed by his unit was a Yugoslavian Muslim officer.

The villagers sniper fire from higher positions in the west contained effectively the attack, especially from the mukhtar's (= mayor's) house. Some Lehi units went for help from the Haganah's Camp Schneller in Jerusalem.

Intense Arab firepower caused the fighters' advance into Deir Yassin to be very slow. Reuven Greenberg reported later that "the Arabs fought like lions and excelled at accurate sniping". He added that "[Arab] women ran from the houses under fire, collected the weapons which had fallen from the hands of Arab fighters who had been wounded, and brought them back into the houses". In certain cases, after storming a house, dead Arab women were found with guns in their hands, a sign they had taken part in the battle.

Ezra Yachin recalled, "To take a house, you had either to throw a grenade or shoot your way into it. If you were foolish enough to open doors, you got shot down -- sometimes by men dressed up as women, shooting out at you in a second of surprise".

Briefings before the battle had stated that most of the houses in Deir Yassin had wooden doors, so, while trying to storm them, the fighters were surprised to discover the doors were made of iron, leaving no recourse but to blow them open with powerful explosives, in the process inadvertently killing or wounding some inhabitants. The Lehi forces slowly advanced house by house.

Meanwhile, the Irgun soldiers on the other side of the village, were having a very difficult time. By 7:00 a.m., discouraged by the Arab resistance and their own increasing casualties, Irgun commanders relayed a message to the Lehi camp that they were seriously considering retreating from the town. Lehi commanders relayed back that they had already entered the village and expected victory soon.

The large number of wounded was a big problem for the guerillas: they had to be evacuated but if they did they could be fired upon. Meret called the Magen David Adom station for an ambulance that came to the battle area. The attackers took beds out of the houses, laid the wounded on them and ordered the inhabitants of the village, including women and old people, to carry the beds to the ambulance and to screen them. They believed the Arabs would not shoot their own people, which however they did.

The Irgun quickly arranged to receive a supply of explosives from their base in Givat Shaul, and started blasting their way into house after house. In certain instances, the force of the explosions collapsed whole parts of houses, burying Arab soldiers as well as civilians who were still inside.

In numerous instances Arabs emerged from the houses and surrendered; over 100 were taken prisoner by day's end. At least two Haganah members on the scene reported the Lehi repeatedly using a loudspeaker to implore the residents to surrender.

In certain cases Arabs pretending to surrender revealed hidden weapons and shot at their would-be Jewish captors. Benny Morris, has characterized Gorodenchik's testimony as confused.

At about 10:00 am a sizeable Palmach unit from the Haganah arrived. They brought an armored vehicle and a two-inch mortar. The mortar was fired three times at the mukhtar's house which silenced its snipers. The Palmach unit managed to clear the village of serious resistance and Lehi officer David Gottlieb saw the Palmach accomplish "in one hour what we could not accomplish in several hours."

The loudspeaker truck

Before the battle the Irgun had prepared a truck with a loudspeaker to warn the villagers of the attack and attempt to force them from their homes. However, there is near-total agreement that the truck never even entered the settlement. The truck left Givat Shaul a few minutes before 5:00 AM as planned, and by then the battle had already started. According to Irgun leader Menachem Begin the truck was driven to the entrance of the area and broadcasted a warning to the civilians. Other sources say that the truck never reached the village, and still others claim that the truck came to a relatively small distance from the village. Other sources claim that the truck rolled into a ditch caused by Palestinian gunfire before it could broadcast its warning. According to Ezra Yachin, "After we filled in the ditch we continued travelling. We passed two barricades and stopped in front of the third, 30 meters away from the village. One of us called out on the loudspeaker in Arabic, telling the inhabitants to put down their weapons and flee. I don't know if they heard, and I know these appeals had no effect. We alighted from the armored car and joined the attack". Whether or not the truck's message was heard by the villagers is unclear. While hundreds of Deir Yassin residents did flee, it is unclear if it was because of the announcements, the sound of gunfire, or warnings from fellow-villagers who were near the battle sites.

After the battle

The fighting was over at about 11:00 am. The fighters begin to clean up the houses to secure them. Irgun's commander Ben-Zion Cohen noted: "[We] felt a desire for revenge." One villager has stated that the attackers appeared to have been set off by an Irgun commander's death, still others reported that upon discovering an armed man disguised as a woman, one guerrilla began shooting everyone around, followed by his comrades joining in. In the afternoon prisoners were taken on the village trucks to a victory parade in the Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem before they were released in Arab East Jerusalem. Fahimi Zeidan testified that they "put us in trucks and drove us around the Jewish quarters, all while cursing us." Harry Levin, a Haganah broadcaster, reported seeing "three trucks driving slowly up and down King George V Avenue bearing men, women, and children, their hand above their heads, guarded by Jews armed with sten-guns and rifles."

Number of dead, wounded and prisoners

In 1948 participants, observers and journalists wrote that as many as 254 villagers were killed that day. Everyone had an interest in publicizing a high Arab casualty figure: the Haganah, to tarnish the Irgun and Lehi; the Arabs and the British to blacken the Jews; the Irgun and Lehi to provoke terror and frighten Arabs into fleeing the country.

Arab forces used the incident to unify and invigorate Arab anger against the Jews - resulting in the Hadassah medical convoy massacre, in which 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and patients were killed.

The first number publicized about the death toll was 254. Irgun commander Raanan told it to reporters and it quickly stuck. Raanan's figure was a deliberate exaggeration, he later explained: "I told the reporters that 254 were killed so that a big figure would be published, and so that Arabs would panic."

The fog of war accounts for some of the discrepancies. In addition, there were severe rivalries between the Haganah, the Irgun and the Lehi. The number of 254 killed was readily accepted and disseminated for different reasons of convenience for various parties. This figure has become, until recently, the standard one usually quoted.

In 1987, the Research and Documentation Center of Bir Zeit University, a prominent Arab university on the West Bank, published a comprehensive study of the history of Deir Yassin, as part of its Destroyed Palestinian Villages Documentation Project. The Center's findings concerning Deir Yassin were published, in Arabic only, as the fourth booklet in its "Destroyed Arab Villages Series.

Results

Deir Yassin very quickly became an ideological bait in the propaganda war between Israel and the Arab states. Panic flight of Arabs across Palestine intensified. It was also used as a strong argument for the Arab states to intervene against Israel, Arab League chief Azzam Pasha said "The massacre of Deir Yassin was to a great extent the cause of the wrath of the Arab nations and the most important factor for sending [in] the Arab armies**.

Moreover an Arab retaliatory strike came very quickly. Just four days after the massacre at Deir Yassin had been published, an Arab force ambushed a Jewish convoy on the way to Hadassah Hospital, killing 77 Jews, doctors, nurses and patients (see Hadassah medical convoy massacre).

After the war Deir Yassin was settled by Israelis and named Givat Schaul Beth, today belonging to the city of Jerusalem (at the top end of Har Nof). Much of the western side of the village is part of the Kfar Shaul mental health center.

Modern debate

In 1969, the Israeli Foreign Ministry published a pamphlet “Background Notes on Current Themes: Deir Yassin” in English denying that there had been a massacre at Deir Yassin, and calling the story "part of a package of fairy tales, for export and home consumption". The pamphlet led to a series of derivative articles giving the same message, especially in America. Menachem Begin's Herut party disseminated a Hebrew translation in Israel, causing a widespread but largely non-public debate within the Israeli establishment. Several former leaders of the Hagannah demanded that the pamphlet be withdrawn on account of its inaccuracy, but the Foreign Ministry explained that "While our intention and desire is to maintain accuracy in our information, we sometimes are forced to deviate from this principle when we have no choice or alternative means to rebuff a propaganda assault or Arab psychological warfare." Yitzhak Levi, the 1948 leader of Hagannah Intelligence, wrote to Begin: "On behalf of the truth and the purity of arms of the Jewish soldier in the War of Independence, I see it as my duty to warn you against continuing to spread this untrue version about what happened in Deir Yassin to the Israeli public. Otherwise there will be no avoiding raising the matter publicly and you will be responsible." Eventually, the Foreign Ministry agreed to stop distributing the pamphet, but it remains the source of many popular accounts.

The most detailed account of what happened at Deir Yassin was published by Israeli military historian Uri Milstein. Milstein describes many examples of atrocities committed by the Irgun and Lehi forces, and agrees that most of the dead were “old people, women and children. Only a modest number were young men classifiable as fighters.” However, Milstein concluded that most of these events occurred while the fighting was in progress, rather than afterwards. He doubts that Meir Pa'il was present early enough to see everything he claims to have seen (which Pa'il hotly denies). Finally he is reluctant to call it a "massacre", claiming that such occurrences are typical of war and that the Haganah did similar things on many occasions, even if not on such a scale.

See also: List of massacres committed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war

Notes

Sources quoted by author and year only can be found in full below under References

References

• Milstein, Uri (1998) [1987]. "Chapter 16: Deir Yassin". History of the War of Independence IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision (in Hebrew and English version translated and edited by Alan Sacks). Lanhan, Maryland: University Press of America. pp. 343–396. ISBN 0761814892.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
• Morris, Benny (1989). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521330289.
• Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521811201; ISBN 0521009677 (pbk.).
• Morris, Benny (2005). "The Historiography of Deir Yassin". Journal of Israeli History. 24 (1): 79–107.
• Gelber, Yoav (2006). Palestine 1948. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1845190750
• Sharif Kanaana and Nihad Zitawi, "Deir Yassin," Monograph No. 4, Destroyed Palestinian Villages Documentation Project (Bir Zeit: Documentation Center of Bir Zeit University, 1987), p. 55.
• "There was no Massacre there" by Yerach Tal, in Ha'Aretz, 8 September 1991, page B3.
• "Indeed there was a Massacre there" by Danny Rubinstein, in Ha'Aretz, 11 September 1991.
• Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem!, History Book Club, 1972, ISBN 0671662414, p303-314.

External links

• Irgun - Essay by Prof. Yehuda Lapidot from the IZL (Irgun) site
• Deir Yassin Remembered - a non-profit organisation with the stated goal to "do justice to the victims of the Deir Yassin massacre"
• www.us-israel.org - Essay by Mitchell Bard.
• [3] - Essay by Paul Holmes
• Zionist Organisation of America - Essay by Sid Zion.
• PEACE Middle East Dialog Group
• Webpage opposing the massacre theses
• Compilation of sources and essays (PDF, 188 pages)