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Details of massacres against Palestinians revealed in classified Israeli documents

An elderly Palestinian and a child during the Nakba [Hanini/Wikipedia]

An elderly Palestinian and a child can be seen during the Nakba in 1948 [Hanini/Wikipedia]
MEMO | December 10, 2021

Israeli government discussions on the massacres perpetrated by Israeli soldiers in 1948 were declassified for the first time this week in an investigative report published by Haaretz and the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research.

Entitled, Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in ’48 – and What Israeli Leaders Knew, the report exposes two large-scale operations launched by the army in October 1948, one based in the south, known as Operation Yoav, which opened a road to the Negev; and another in the north, Operation Hiram.

As part of the latter, within 30 hours Israeli soldiers attacked dozens of Palestinian villages, forcefully expelling tens of thousands of Palestinian residents, while thousands of others fled.

Nearly 120,000 Palestinians, including the elderly, women and children resided in the area, however, following Israel’s massacre only 30,000 Palestinians were left.

“Within less than three days, the IDF [army] had conquered the Galilee and also extended its reach into villages in southern Lebanon. The overwhelming majority of them took no part in the fighting,” reported Haaretz.

The investigation also revealed accounts regarding previously unknown massacres that took place in the villages of Al-Reineh, just north of Nazareth, Meron and in Al-Burj.

Before the brutal attacks against Palestinians during Operation Hiram, the village of Al-Burj, presently known as Modi’in Illit, a large ultra-Orthodox settlement in the occupied West Bank, was raided in July 1948.

According to a document found in the Yad Yaari Archive, four elderly men remained in the village after its capture. “Hajj Ibrahim, who helped out in the military kitchen, a sick elderly woman and another elderly man and elderly woman.”

Eight days after the village was raided by Israeli occupation forces, Ibrahim was sent on an errand to pick vegetables by an Israeli soldier, in order to keep him away from the atrocity the soldiers were ready to commit.

“The three others were taken to an isolated house. Afterward an anti-tank shell was fired. When the shell missed the target, six hand grenades were thrown into the house. They killed an elderly man and woman, and the elderly woman was put to death with a firearm,” according to the document.

“Afterward they torched the house and burned the three bodies. When Hajj Ibrahim returned with his guard, he was told that the three others had been sent to the hospital in Ramallah. Apparently he didn’t believe the story, and a few hours later he too was put to death, with four bullets,” added the document.

The declassified State Archives also consist of several pages of minutes from those years, including the testimony of Shmuel Mikunis, a member of the Provisional State Council (predecessor to the Knesset) from the Communist Party, who reported on the atrocities perpetrated in the Meron region.

Mikunis requested clarification from former Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion about acts that had been carried out by members of the Jewish terrorist group, Irgun.

According to the declassified documents, “A. They annihilated with a machine gun 35 Arabs who had surrendered to that company with a white flag in their hands. B. They took as captives peaceful residents, among them women and children, ordered them to dig a pit, pushed them into it with long French bayonets and shot the unfortunates until they were all murdered. There was even a woman with an infant in her arms. C. Arab children of about 13-14 who were playing with grenades were all shot. D. A girl of about 19-20 was raped by men from Altalena [an Irgun unit]; afterward she was stabbed with a bayonet and a wooden stick was thrust into her body.”

The declassified documents, investigated in Haartez’s report also includes details on the Hula massacre in Lebanon and the depopulated Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. Though the report is lengthy, the paper highlights that many more details remain unknown; “This is not surprising, considering how much material remains locked away in the archives,” it explained.

December 10, 2021 - Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , ,

2 Comments »

  1. I said it before but, Haaretz seems to be a very fair newspaper(unlike lots of Newspapers around the World. Maybe the Western Press should take some lessons from them.
    The Palestinian Holocaust continues to this day. We never stop hearing about it in the West, but, what is happening to the Palestinians, is just as bad…..

    Like

    brianharryaustralia's avatar Comment by brianharryaustralia | December 10, 2021 | Reply

  2. The always excellent and insightful comment by the first commenter could have inadvertently left off the following to the last sentence: “…as in the present as in the first invasion and conquest begun in 1948.”

    What this Zionist war has wrought has been chronicled, though so poorly by its censors, its proponents, its apologists, its financiers and perhaps worst, by those contributors… is more and more revealed, though it was always known and chronicled.

    And it’s affect, its spread, its hold is here, in America. In ways monumental. Its ways much less monumental, unless the spy/pedophile purpose and operation of Epstein and Maxwell and Ehud Barak, lurking at the doorway to the mansion, ready to largess more money and gather up compromising blackmail on the predators enticed into this operation by Epstein and Maxwell. Pity the easily enticed children… preyed upon by vampires in the night. They were children, whether 14 years old or just the legal age of adulthood.

    How ugly it is. How can anyone look at the historical records, pictures and accounts without revulsion and anger? How can anyone look at the amputees, the crippled who have been deliberately wounded–and emphasis that was done DELIBERATELY–of those who survived that. And perhaps to form a soccer team or something like that, and not react with revulsion and anger?

    Again, the worst are the contributors who know of it, who contribute to this, deliberately.

    For America, Israel is not an ally. It is the opposite… unless America want to be allied with that, historically and into the very present… deliberately.

    Liked by 1 person

    michael's avatar Comment by michael | December 10, 2021 | Reply


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