Al-Dawayima massacre
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On October 29, 1948, the Arab town al-Dawayima was conquered during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war by the 89th Commando Battalion which was composed of former Irgun and Lehi troops. They encountered only "light resistance" from the villagers, whose core clan, the Ahdibs, traced their origins to the Muslim conquest of Palestine in the seventh century.[1]
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[edit] Eyewitness accounts
An unnamed Israeli soldier said, "The first wave of conquerors killed about 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. The children they killed by breaking their heads with sticks. There was not a house without dead."[2]
- "Atrocities and acts of brutality characterised this period: summary executions, rape, blowing up houses along with their occupants, looting and plundering, and leaving hundreds of villages to their own devices in the fields, without food or water. The most serious atrocities were committed in the village of Al-Dawayima on the western slopes of the Hebron Highlands. This large village, with a population of some 3,500 was taken on 29 October, 1948. The occupying forces indiscriminately killed between 80 and 100 males villagers, blew up houses together with their occupants, murdered women and children, and committed rape. According to eyewitness testimony, these acts were committed "not in the heat of battle and inflamed passions, but out of a system of expulsion and destruction. The fewer Arabs remained -- the better."
According to Benny Morris, the occupying forces held the villagers responsible for taking part in the Kfar Etzion massacre and sought revenge.[4]
[edit] The UN inspection team
On November 7 UN inspectors visited the scene of the village to investigate charges of a massacre by the Egyptians and refugees from the village. The team found "several demolished buildings and one corpse but no evidence of a massacre."[5]
Isser Be'eri, the commander of the IDF intelligence service, who conducted an independent investigation, concluded that 80 people had been killed during the occupation of Al-Dawayima and that 22 had been captured and executed subsequently. Be'eri recommended prosecution of the platoon OC, who had confessed to the massacre.[6]
[edit] Reactions
The American consul in Jerusalem, William Burdett, who had received news about the massacre reported on November 16 to Washington "Investigation by UN indicates massacre occurred but observers are unable to determine number of persons involved."
News of the massacre reached village communities in the western Hebron and Judean foothills "possibly precipitating further flight".[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Benvenisti, Meron (2002). Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23422-7
- Morris, Benny (2003). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00967-7
