Deir Yassin massacre

The Battle of Deir Yassin took place on the outskirts and inside the village of Deir Yassin (also known as Dayr Yasin and Dir 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 sorrounding areas. This battle is known mostly due to the events between April 9 and April 11, 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, in an incident referred to by some as the "Deir Yassin Massacre". During the battle, 4 Irgun and Lehi members were also killed and 40 were wounded.Template:Fn

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

In November 29, 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 dissolved, culminated into widespread riots and low intensity warfare in December of 1947. Fighting grew progressively worse after the Mandate dissolved on the 15th of May 1948, and intensified into the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, after Israel declared its statehood.

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 cities 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 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, 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 April 9, 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

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 not recognized by the Haganah Command and was temporary in nature. For example, Abu Gosh also concluded a local peace pact, but was subsequently quietly barracked by Haganah forces because it overlooked a strategic position over a site planned for a military airport.

On April 2nd through April 4, 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.Template:Fn On Sunday, April 4, 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."Template:Fn 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."Template:Fn

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 Template:Fn. 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."Template:Fn

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. In March 13, 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. Template:Fn

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.Template:Fn 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."Template:Fn

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.Template:Fn

The timeline is as follows:

• 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.Template:Fn

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

• 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 opposition from the villagers weeks later.Template:Fn

• 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.Template:Fn

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." Template:Fn

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 seige of Jerusalem. Zettler suggested attacking the village of Sheikh Jerakh and Shaufat to revenge the attack on Atarot on March 25 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 Dier Yassin was a strategic objective the organizations should take, and requested the Haganah to coordinate with their first major planned offensive. Template:Fn

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. Template:Fn.

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."Template:Fn.

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." Template:Fn 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.Template:Fn

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.Template:Fn Due to the ideological differences between the Labor Zionist Palmach and the Revisionist Zionist Irgun and Lehi, there was considerable rivarly 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 Template:Fn.

The original date for the attack was set at April 7, 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." Template:Fn

From Givat Shaul a Lehi unit, with an attached photogropher 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.Template:Fn A few minutes before 5:00AM, the loud speaker truck was hit by Arab gunfire and careened into a ditch 30 meters away from the village Template:Fn. 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 Template:Fn, and many did, although the loudspeaker truck had minimum effect. Template:Fn

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. 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". Template:Fn

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". Template:Fn

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. Template:Fn

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".Template:Fn

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.Template:Fn

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.Template:Fn

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." Template:Fn

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: 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.Template:Fn 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 fortified positions. "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." Template:Fn

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."Template:Fn 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. Villagers testified that Deir Yassin men had fought at Qastel and Motza. Template:Fn

Prisoners

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 orderTemplate:Fn.

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 Template:Fn.

In certain cases, Arabs pretending to surrender revealed hidden weapons and shot at their would-be Jewish captors.Template:Fn An Arab fellow 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.Template:Fn

On April 9th at 12:00PM, prisoners were taken on the village trucks to a victory parade in the Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem before they were released in East Jerusalem. 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." Template:Fn

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 fleeingTemplate:Fn, 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 publisized 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." Template:Fn 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."Template:Fn

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 and Rape

One of the most graphic accounts was given by Benny Morris in his book "Righteous Victims", where he claimed that "Whole families were riddled with bullets...men, women, and children were mowed down as they emerged from houses; individuals were taken aside and shot. There were piles of dead. Some of the prisoners moved to places of incarceration, including women and children, were murdered viciously by their captors.... Lehi members...relate that the IZL men raped a number of Arab girls and murdered them afterward...and looted the dead bodies." Template:Fn On April 11, 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." Template:Fn Reynier's account is confirmed by Fahimi Zeidan, a villager who claims 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."Template:Fn Another villager, Haleem Eid, a woman, saw "a man shoot a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh who was nine months pregnant."Template:Fn 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. Template:Fn

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."Template:Fn 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." Template:Fn 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.'" Template:Fn 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, April 12 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."Template:Fn

On April 1st, 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." Template:Fn 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." Template:Fn

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 equiped 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 an exaggarated numbers and discriptions, which most of the participants on both sides did nothing to disprove. Everyone 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 and convenient number by the BBC, various journalist pieces, British CID reports, and even into Meir Pa'il's report to Haganah command.Template:Fn Mohammed Radwan, during his interview with Paul Holmes of the Middle East Times, personally listed that 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.Template:Fn 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."Template:Fn

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.

The most comprehensive study was commissioned by Bir Zeit University whose researchers tracked down the surviving Arab eyewitnesses to the attack and personally interviewed each of 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," the Bir Zeit authors explained, 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.Template:Fn

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." Template:Fn 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. " Template:Fn Most of the accounts of third party observers and their testimony come either days after the fighting or after the battle. Based on third part accounts, bodies of dead villagers lay in houses, many were shot at close range., consistent with door-to-door fighting. Template:Fn Mordechai Gihon, a Haganah intelligence officer who entered the village around 3:00 P.M. saw bodies thrown into caves and a nearby quarry. Template:Fn

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.

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

• Template:Fnb Yitzak Levi, "Nine Measures", p. 341).
• Template:Fnb Dan Kurzman, Genesis 1948, (OH: New American Library, Inc., 1970), p. 141.
• Template:Fnb Pa'il and Isseroff, "Meir Pa'il's Eyewitness Account"; Levi, Nine Measures, p. 341
• Template:Fnb Davar Front page, April 4, 1948
• Template:Fnb Milstein The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision, Zmora - Bitan, Tel-Aviv 1991, p. 256.
• Template:Fnb "Dayr Yasin," Bir Zeit University
• Template:Fnb Uri Milstein, "Deir Yassin"
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 265
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 257
• Template:Fnb Levi, Yitzhak, "Nine Measures" op. cit. p. 340.
• Template:Fnb Eban, Abba, "Background Notes on Current Themes" - No.6: Dir Yassin
• Template:Fnb Levi, Yitzhak, op. cit. p 342.
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, "Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.262
• Template:Fnb Levi, Yitzhak, op. cit. p 342.
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 262.
• Template:Fnb"The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 263
• Template:Fnb"Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.262-265, Milstein
• Template:FnbMilstein, p.263, interview with Uri Brenner
• Template:FnbLynne Reid Banks, "A Torn Country" "An Oral History of the Israeli War of Independence", New York: Franklin Watts, 1982, p. 62.)
• Template:Fnb Testimony of Yehoshua Gorodenchik, MZ
• Template:Fnb Information from "Edge of the Sword", p.450, Lorch
• Template:Fnb Information from Testimony of Reuven Greenberg.
• Template:Fnb 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.)
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri, op. cit. p. 267.
• Template:Fnb 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.
• Template:FnbMilstein, p. 257, citing the Israel Defense Forces Archives, War of Independence Collection 88/17, "From Hashmonai," 4 April 1948, 10:00 A.M.
• Template:FnbMilstein, p. 258, citing "Operations Log - Arza," 4 April 1948, 17:00 hours, Broadcast #562, Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 88/17.
• Template:FnbMilstein, p.258 (interview with Mordechai Gihon).
• Template:FnbMilstein, p.258, citing Israel Defense Forces Archive, War of Independence Collection, 228/3, Operation Log, 9 April 1948, 2:40 a.m.
• Template:Fnb "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)
• Template:Fnb Information from Out of Crisis Comes Decision, p.269, Milstein)
• Template:Fnb 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."
• Template:Fnb From "Righteous Victims, p. 208" by Benny Morris
• Template:Fnb 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
• Template:FnbInformation from Fahimi Zeidan, quoted by Kanani and Zitawi, "Deir Yassin, Monograph No. 4," 55.
• Template:FnbInformation from Kanani and Zitawi, "Deir Yassin, Monograph No. 4," 55.)
• Template:Fnb Milstein, Uri op. cit. p. 272
• Template:FnbMilstein, pp.269-270 (interview with Alfred Engel, 7 December 1987).
• Template:FnbSpicehandler testimony in Martin, op.cit.
• Template:FnbDavid Shaltiel, Jerusalem 1948, p.140; Aryeh Yitzhaki, "Deir Yassin--Not Through a Warped Mirror," Yediot Ahronot, 14 April 1972, p.17.
• Template:FnbBBC/WGBH documentary "Israel and the Arabs: the 50-year conflict."
• Template:Fnb Excerpts from Mohammed Radwan interview, reported by Paul Holmes, Middle East Times, April 20 1998
• Template:Fnb The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision pages 90-92, Section 3
• Template:Fnb Jabotinsky Institute, From the testimony of Yehuda Lapidot and Ben Zion Cohen
• Template:Fnb The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision p. 50
• Template:FnbThe War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 276
• Template:FnbMuhammad Arif Sammour, quoted in Begin: The Haunted Prophet, by Eric Silver
• Template:Fnb The War of Independence Vol. IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision" p. 269
• Template:Fnb Information from Beit Zit University Study p.57
• Template:Fnb Excerpt from Interview with Ayish Zeidan, the Daily Telegraph, April 8 1998
• Template:Fnb Information from Uri Milstein, Out of Crisis came Decision, p. 279
• Template:Fnb Yitzhak Levi, Nine Measures, p. 343
• Template:Fnb Information from Chashmonai Diary (IDF Archives) 12 January Paragraph 9;IDF Archives 2504/49/16 15
• Template:Fnb Information from Chashmonai Diary (IDF Archives) 28 January Paragraph 10; IDF Archives 446/48/20 66;
• Template:Fnb Information from Yitzhak Levi, "Nine Measures", p.340)
• Template:Fnb Information from IDF Archives 4944/49/520 42; 446/48/22 60,65;500/48/29 409; 446/48/18 57;
• Template:Fnb 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.
• Template:Fnb Muhammad Arif Sammour, quoted in Begin: The Haunted Prophet, by Eric Silver