Massacres and the Nakba
Massacres and the Nakba
Sabra and Shatila, however, were not an aberrationin the fifty-two
years of Palestinian exile.1 According
to a recent compilation of studies based on UN and Israeli
archives, more than 30 documented massacres were committed by
Zionist/Israeli forces during the 1948 war in
Palestine.2 This included 24 massacres
in the north (Galilee), 5 massacres in the central area of
Palestine, and another 5 in the south.3
Deir Yassin (Jerusalem)
On 9 April 1948 Irgun (IZL) and Lehi (LHI) units, supported by
Haganah mortaring, attacked the village of Deir Yassin on the
western outskirts of Jerusalem. During the battle Palestinian
families were slaughtered in or near their homes. According to the
Irgun officer, Yehuda Lapidot, the Stern Gang, "put forward a
proposal to liquidate the residents of the village after the
conquest in order to show the Arabs what happens when the Irgun and
the Stern Gang set out together on an operation"5
One of the aims of the attack was "to break Arab morale" and create panic throughout Palestine. Benzion Cohen, the Irgun commander of the raid, later recalled that at the pre-attack meeting "the majority was for liquidation of all the men in the village and any others found that opposed us, whether it be old people, women and children."6
After Zionist forces took control of the village, many of the remaining villagers, including children, were rounded up and shot. The surviving inhabitants were expelled to Arab controlled eastern Jerusalem. More than 100 Palestinians were killed in the massacre. The words "Deir Yassin" became a watch-word for Palestinian Arabs throughout Palestine, creating a climate of fear that, combined with Zionist offensives, led to the mass exodus from other villages. Mohammed Aref Sammour witnessed the slaughter of many of his relatives and neighbors.
In a house not far from his own, "There weretwenty-five
people, twenty-four were killed and only one could escape through a
window. They used grenades and after they stormed the house they
used machine guns. In another house they captured a boy who was
holding the knee of his mother. They slaughtered him in front of
her."
Sammour saw a family of eleven people attempt to surrender but the terrorists gunned them down, including a woman of eighty and a boy of three or four years old.7 In another case, two villagers were tied back to back and a stick of dynamite was placed between their heads; the stick of dynamite was shot blowing the heads off of the victims. According to the report filed by the chief Delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem, the villagers were deliberately massacred in cold blood.
"The Jews ordered all our family to line up against the wall and they started shooting us," recalled another survivor. "I was hit in the side, but most of us children were saved because we hid behind our parents. The bullets hit my sister Kadri [four] in the head, my sister Sameh [eight] in the cheek, my brother Mohammed [seven] in the chest. But all the others with us against the wall were killed: my father, my mother, my grandfather and grandmother, my uncles and aunts and some of their children."8
According to another survivor interviewed several years ago by BADIL, "There was a youth with them, his name was Abdallah Abdelmajid Samour. He was 23 years old and working with the telephones. He had a small son of three-four months. At Racheli's house they saw him among the women, took him off the truck, shot him in front of his wife and his mother, dragged him on his back about 100 meters on the ground to a quarry - there is a quarry there, about 10 meter deep - and they threw him into the quarry. There were eight youth, my dear - you reminded me - they put them up along the wall of Haja Sabha Radwan - I am sure the wall is still there - and they shot them in one row in front of the women, eight youth.9
Al-Dawayma (Hebron)
According to an Israeli soldier who witnessed themassacre, between
80 and 100 men, women, and children were killed in the village of
Dawayma on 29 October 1948 after Israeli forces entered the
village.10 Other sources place the
figure as high as 300. Children were killed by breaking their heads
with sticks. Several villagers died when the houses in which they
were taking shelter were intentionally blown up by Jewish
soldiers.
Other villagers carried out forced labor for the soldiers for several days, including a mother with a newborn infant. They were then shot. After more than three requests, UN investigators were finally permitted to enter the village. The Belgian member of the investigating team Van Wassenhove noted that the houses in the village were still smoking and that some of the homes "gave a peculiar smell as if bones were burning."
Wassenhove was not permitted, however, to enter the homes.
Investigators were also denied entry into the village mosque and
key areas of the village. At one point during their investigation,
the team happened upon the body of a Palestinian civilian. Israeli
officials accompanying the team prevented further examination of
the body. Following consultations with the investigating team, the
American Consul in Jerusalem cabled Washington to report that the
"Investigation by the UN indicates massacre occurred but observers
are unable to determine
number of persons involved."
According to the village's former Mukhtar, interviewed by the Israeli daily Hadashot, "The people fled, and everyone they saw in the houses they shot and killed. They also killed the people in the streets. (…) At about half-past ten, the two tanks passed the Darawish Mosque. About 75 old people were there, who had come early for Friday prayers. They gathered in the mosque to pray.They were all killed." The mukhtar also said that about 35 families were hiding in caves outside the village. When the Israeli soldiers discovered them, "They told them to come out and get into line and start to walk.
And as they started to walk, they were shot by machine guns from two sides … We sent people there that night, who collected the bodies, put them into a cistern, and buried them." The mukhtar later showed an Israeli journalist the cistern where the bodies had been buried. The cistern was partially excavated revealing the remains, including skulls, of three persons, one being a child. The bones were reburied and no further exhumation was done.
Al-Tantoura (Haifa)
According to recently uncovered evidence by Israeli researcher Teddy Katz, Israeli troops massacred 200 Palestinians in Tantoura on 15 May. The massacre took place during the nightand lasted several hours. Fawzi Tanji, now 73 and a refugee at a c amp in the West Bank, described how he had watched as Israeli troops took over the village. "I was 21 years old then," said Tanji. "They took a group of ten men, lined them up against the cemetery wall and killed them. Then Al-Dawayma (Hebron) According to an Israeli soldier who witnessed the massacre, between 80 and 100 men, women, and children were killed in the village of Dawayma on 29 October 1948 after Israeli forces entered the village.10
Other sources place the figure as high as 300. Children were killed by breaking their heads with sticks. Several villagers died when the houses in which they were taking shelter were intentionally blown up by Jewish soldiers. Other they brought another group, killed them, threw away the bodies and so on."11
Tanji said the killing stopped when a Jew from the nearby
settlement of Zichron Yaacov arrived at the scene, took out a
pistol and threatened to kill himself unless the soldiers stopped
the executions. Katz said that other Palestinians were killed in
their homes or in other parts of the village. At one point, he
said, the soldiers shot at anything that moved.12
| Newly Established:
Committee Against the Denial of al-Nakba and for the Defense of
Researchers in Israel Earlier this year, MA research (Haifa
University) of Israeli Kibbutznik Teddy Katz had revealed a
previously little documented massacre committed by the Israeli
Alexandroni Brigade (first Hagana, then IDF) in 1948 among the
Palestinian villages of al-Tantoura. The research findings caused
stormy debates among the Israeli academic and political
establishment and attracted international attention. Today, several
months later, Teddi Katz is facing a precedent-setting libel suit
filed by a veteran organization of the Israeli perpetrators quoted
in his research. The court hearing at the Tel Aviv District Court
is scheduled for 6 December 2000. |
Eilaboun (Acre)
In the village of Eilaboun in the northern district of Ako (Acre),
UN investigators interviewed witnesses to the massacre of local
youth by Israeli forces after the village had surrounded at the end
of October 1948.13 According to the
testimony given by Father Hanna David, head of the local Catholic
church, and Father Elias, head of the Orthodox church, and recorded
in a set of files on atrocities during September through November
1948, 13 young men were murdered by Israeli troops. The file lists
the names of the young men and the location of their murder:
(a) in front of Father Murqus's house: Badiah Zuraiq 24, Foad Nofal
22, Jabri Haiek 23 and A'azaz 30;
(b) At the village northern entrance: Fadel A'ailaboni 17, Milad Faiad 22 and Zaki Mousa 22.
(c) In the fields: Hanna El-Khori 35, Naa'em Zraiq 36 and
Muhammad Khaled 30;
and, (d) Near the cemetery (north the village): Raja Khalil 27,
Michael Shami 35 and Abdullah Shofani 18.
According to one eye-witness, "We saw the blood everywhere, and we found out later that before shooting the victims, the Israeli officer had yelled, 'you want war? This is the war'." During the 5 day Israeli occupation of the village, houses were plundered, doors and windows were broken, furniture destroyed, and religious sites were desecrated.
Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes, and International Protection
Other crimes, however, were committed against Palestinians during the war which are prohibited under international law. Over 500 villages were destroyed, and homes were looted, bulldozed and dynamited, in order to force Palestinians out of areas conquered by Zionist/ Israeli forces and to prevent the refugees from returning.
Villages were shelled, and hit with continuous rounds of mortars in order to "flush" out the civilian inhabitants. Writing in his journal at the end of March Khalil Sakakini, a prominent Palestinian Jerusalemite, wrote, "The Jews launched a heavy attack on our neighborhood … last night. There were explosions the likes of which were never seen. [Lord] Kitchener, in all his battles, did not hear what we heard tonight …
The constant whistle of bullets and thunder of shells … was unlike anything heard in previous wars … No wonder this situation has made residents consider moving to another neighborhood or town …"15 Refugees fleeing their villages for safe areas were attacked, robbed, and in some cases massacred, while others died from the stress and strain of the situation. Often, rounds of live-fire and mortars were shot in the direction of fleeing villagers in order to encourage their flight. Incidents were occasionally investigated, but the perpetrators were either punished lightly or released without charge.
The protection of civilians in times of war is clearly guaranteed in international law, including the Hague Convention of 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and more recently under the 1998 Statute of the International Criminal Court. Under the 1998 Statute, Article 7(1), crimes punishable as crimes against humanity include murder, deportation or forcible transfer, rape, and persecution against any identifiable ethnic group or collectivity on political, racial, national, or other grounds, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.16
War crimes include grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, willful killing, extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity, and unlawful deportation or transfer, intentional attacks directed at the civilian population, intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects, killing or wounding a combatant who has laid down his arms and no longer has a means of defense, transfer of civilian population of the occupying power into the occupied territory, and pillage, among others.
Regardless of whether refugees left Palestine in 1948 because of the massacres or other kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity, all refugees are guaranteed the right of return under international refugee law and the wider body of international human rights law. Outside the issue of the return of Palestinian refugees, which the UN High Commission for Human Rights has noted is indispensable for reintegration, reconciliation and reconstruction, a stable and justpeace must address the issue of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In the case of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, International
Tribunals have been established to deal with crimes not unlike
those committed against Palestinians in 1948 and later in Sabra and
Shatila. Nearly two decades later, not one person, neither Sharon
nor Yaron, has ever been brought before an international tribunal
for war crimes and crimes against humanity even though there is no
statute of limitations on war crimes, and despite the growing
amount of evidence of such crimes.
Notes:
(1) It was never
possible to make an accurate count of the victims: an IRC
representative counted 328 bodies, excluding mass graves or the
"disappeared". Israeli figures, based on IDF intelligence, cite a
figure of 700-800. One journalist cites a figure of 3,000. A
Kapeliouk, Sabra and Shatila: Inquiry into a Massacre. Belmont, MA:
AAUG, 1984.
(2) Rosemary Sayigh,
Too Many Enemies, The Palestinian Experience in Lebanon. London:
Zed Books, 1994, pp. 117- 18.
(3) Salman Abu Sitta,
The Palestinian Nakba 1948. London:
Palestinian Return Centre, 1998.
(4) Israeli historian
Uri Milstein cited ibid.
(5) Jabotinsky Archives
(Tel Aviv) 1/10-4K cited in Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian
Catastrophe, p. 48.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Middle East Center,
St. Anthony's College (Oxford):
Thames Interviews, box II, file 4, cited ibid., p. 50.
(8) Fahmi Zeidan,
quoted in Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem, New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1972, p. 274.
(9) Umm Yasser,
Interview by BADIL, March 1998
(10) Benny Morris,
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 222-223.
(11) United Nations
Archives 13/3.3.1, box 11, Atrocities September-November cited in
Palumbo, pp. xiii-xiv.
(12) US State Dept.
Files 867 N.01/11-1648, National Archive
(Washington, DC) cited ibid.
(13) Walid Khalidi
(ed.), p. 215.
(14) Salman Abu
Sitta, "Jewish carnage policy aimed to evacuate the Galilee
Palestinians As mentioned in the UN
officers' reports in 1948" al-Hayat (London), 6 February
2000, p. 10.
(15) Morris, p.
51.
(16) Article 7, Rome
State of the International Criminal Court,
UN Doc. A/CONF.183/9, 17 July 1998.
(17) Article
18, ibid.
| New BADIL Research Report (Executive Summary) Terry Rempel, BADIL Resource Center, August 2000 "When Refugees Go Home: Repatriation, Restitution and the Palestinian Refugee Case - A Comparative Approach" This report examines the Palestinian refugee case within the context of international refugee law and practice. The report focuses primarily on repatriation and the related element of restitution, recognizing, of course, that refugees may opt for other solutions - i.e. host country absorption and resettlement. Without prejudice to the right of refugees to these latter choices, the report focuses on repatriation and restitution, because they have, historically, been denied to Palestinian refugees. The dearth of research on repatriation and restitution for Palestinian refugees within the context of international refugee law has had negative consequences for Palestinian refugees, both from a rights enforcement and policy perspective. On the one hand, there has been a paucity of legal and political tools for effective advocacy of Palestinian refugee rights. On the other hand, most policy initiatives, academic and governmental, have tended to focus on so-called practical solutions that are inherently inconsistent with international refugee law and the larger body of international humna rights law. Much of this research to date is based on subjective political considerations (i.e. the balance of power in the region) rather than objective legal principles applied to other refugee cases (two recent examples from an academic and policy perspective respectively, are Donna Arzt, "Refugees into Citizens" New York: Council on Foreign Relations Books, 1997; and Phyllis E. Oakley, "Act Now on Mideast Refugees," Washington Post, 6 July 2000). This report is not primarily a legal analysis of the status and rights of Palestinian refugees under international refugee law. Rather, the report uses comparative analysis of the Palestinian refugee case with other major refugee cases in the 20th century in order to highlight the many similarities between Palestinian and other refugees, and more importantly to provoke new thinking about the principles and modalities of a durable solution. Available in English and Arabic from BADIL. Since this executive summary is a preliminary report on the findings of ongoing research scheduled for completion later this year, the summary will be released only upon explicit personal requests. Please include in your request: a) a brief description of the purpose/context of your request; b) a commitment to abstain from public circulation. |