Deir Yassin massacre | |
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Part of the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and Plan Dalet | |
Location | Deir Yassin, Mandatory Palestine |
Date | April 9, 1948[a] |
Target | Palestinian Arab villagers |
Weapons | Firearms, grenades, and explosives[1] |
Deaths | 93-140 Palestinian Arab villagers and 5 attackers |
Injured | 12–70 villagers and a dozen Jewish militiamen[fn 1][1] |
Perpetrators | Zionist militant groups Irgun and Lehi, supported by the Haganah and Palmach[2] |
No. of participants | Around 120–130 Jewish militiamen[1] |
Defenders | Villagers |
Part of a series on the |
Nakba |
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The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when Zionist paramilitaries attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine, killing at least 107 Palestinian villagers, including women and children.[1] The attack was conducted primarily by the Irgun and Lehi, who were supported by the Haganah and Palmach. The massacre was carried out despite the village having agreed to a non-aggression pact. It occurred during the 1947–1948 civil war and was a central component of the Nakba and the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.[3]
On the morning of April 9, Irgun and Lehi forces entered the village from different directions.[4] The Zionist militants massacred Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children, using firearms and hand grenades, as they emptied the village of its residents house by house.[5][6] The inexperienced militias encountered resistance from armed villagers and suffered some casualties.[7] The Haganah directly supported the operation, providing ammunition and covering fire, and two Palmach squads entered the village as reinforcement.[8] A number of villagers were taken captive and paraded through West Jerusalem before being executed.[1][9][10] In addition to the killing and widespread looting, there may have been cases of mutilation and rape.[11] For decades it was believed that 254 Palestinian Arabs had been killed, although present scholarship puts the death toll at around 110.[12] By the end of the operation all of the villagers had been expelled[13] and the Haganah took control of the village.[14] In 1949 the village was resettled by Israelis, becoming part of Givat Shaul.
News of the killings was widely publicized, sparking terror among Palestinians across the country, frightening many to flee their homes in anticipation of further violence against civilians by advancing Jewish forces. The massacre greatly accelerated the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later, beginning the 1948 Arab–Israeli war.[15][16] The Haganah denied its role in the attack and publicly condemned the massacre, blaming it on the Irgun and Lehi, and the Jewish Agency for Palestine (which controlled the Haganah), sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which Abdullah rejected, holding them responsible.[17] Four days after the Deir Yassin massacre, on April 13, a reprisal attack on the Hadassah medical convoy in Jerusalem ended in a massacre killing 78 Jews, most of whom were medical staff.[18][19] Material in Israeli military archives documenting the Deir Yassin massacre remains classified.[20]
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Morris-2005
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Palestinians had already begun fleeing the territory earlier in the spring. Between February and March 1948, some 75,000 Arabs had left their homes in the towns that were the center of fighting, such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa, for the relative safety of the West Bank or neighboring Arab states. That April, after Dayr Yasin, the stream of refugees became a flood.
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