Al-Dawayima massacre
Template:Short description Template:Pp-extended Template:Coord Template:Infobox civilian attack
The al-Dawayima massacre was the killing of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army (IDF) that took place in the town of al-Dawayima on October 29, 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The incident occurred after the town was occupied by the IDF's 89th Commando Battalion during Operation Yoav, encountering little resistance.
Benny Morris has estimated that hundreds of people were killed. Lieutenant-General John Bagot Glubb, the British commander of Jordan's Arab Legion stated the numbers were much smaller, citing a UN report for a figure of 30 women and children killed.<ref>Sir John Bagot Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs, London 1957, pp. 211-212."On October 31st, United Nations observers reported that the Israelis had killed thirty women and children at Dawaima (Dawayima), west of Hebron. It would be an exaggeration to claim that great numbers were massacred. But just enough were killed, or roughly handled, to make sure that all the civilian population took flight, thereby leaving more and more land vacant for future Jewish settlement. These particular villages west of Hebron were to remain vacant and their lands uncultivated for eight years."</ref> A follow-up report delivered to the United Nations by a delegation from the Arab Refugee Congress reported that the Arab Legion had had an interest in underplaying the extent of the massacre, which was, it claimed, worse than the Deir Yassin massacre, in order to avoid further panic and refugee flight.<ref name ="Unispal">'The Dawaymeh Massacre,' United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine Technical Committee, United Nations A/AC.25/Com.Tech/W.3, 14 June 1949.'The reason why so little is known about this massacre which, in many respects, was more brutal than the Deir Yassin massacre, is because the Arab Legion (the Army in control of that area) feared that if the news was allowed to spread, it would have the same effect on the moral of the peasantry that Deir Yassin had, namely to cause another flow of Arab refugees.'</ref> The village mukhtar Hassan Mahmoud Ihdeib, in a sworn statement, estimated the number of victims as 145.<ref name="Unispal" /><ref>Jonathan Ofir, 'The Mukhtar’s sworn testimony,' Mondoweiss, February 12, 2016.</ref>
Background
Prior to the attack the village had a population of 6,000, with some 4,000 of that number being recently displaced refugees.<ref name="domino.un.org">UN Doc. Com Tech/W.3 Template:Webarchive United Nation Conciliation Commission for Palestine Technical committee Report Submitted by the Arab Refugee Congress Dated 14 June 1949</ref> The Haganah intelligence service (HIS) considered the village to be 'very friendly'.<ref name="Morris2004"/> Dawayima was situated a few kilometres west of Hebron.
Historian Michael Palumbo wrote that the 89th Commando Battalion was "composed of former Irgun and Stern Gang terrorists."Template:Efn
Massacre
The village mukhtar's account
According to the village headman, Hassan Mahmoud Ihdeib, half an hour after midday prayers, the village was approached by three groups of troops, from the West, North and South: 20 armoured cars on the Qubeiba-Dawaymeh road, a second group along the Beit Jibrin-Dawaymeh road, and another set of armoured cars approaching from Mafkhar-Dawaymeh. He stated that no call to surrender was announced, and that no resistance took place. Firing began at a distance of 1/2 kilometer as the semi-circular arc of forces closed in. The Israeli troops fired indiscriminately for over an hour, during which time many fled, and two Palestinian groups took refuge respectively in the Mosque and a nearby cave called Iraq El Zagh. On returning the day with other villagers, 60 bodies were found in the mosque, mostly of elderly men. Numerous corpses of men, women and children, lay in the streets. 80 bodies of men, women and children were then found in the entrance of the Iraq El Zagh cavern. On making a census, it emerged that 455 persons were missing, 280 men, and the remainder women and children.<ref name="Unispal" />
The event according to Benny Morris
The letter by Kaplan was published in full in Haaretz in February 2016.<ref name=Auron>Template:Cite news Translation: Template:Cite news</ref> The original of the letter was removed from the archive where it has previously been available.<ref name=Auron/>
Benny Morris writes: Template:Quote The soldier-witness, according to Kaplan, said Template:Quote
From the sworn Statement given by the Mukhtar of Dawaymeh village, Hassan Mahmaod Ihdeib.
Morris has estimated "hundreds" of people were killed,<ref name="haaretz.com">Template:Cite news</ref> he also reports on the IDF investigation, which concluded around 100 villagers had been killed, and cites an account by a Mapam member, based on an interview with an Israeli soldier, who reported 80 to 100 men, women and children killed.<ref name = "Morris_2004">Benny Morris (2004), The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 469.</ref><ref name = "Morris_2008">Benny Morris (2008), 1948: A History the First Arab-Israeli War, p. 333.</ref>
Further details
Ilan Pappe states that the village was guarded by 20 men who were paralysed by fright when they saw the Israeli troops, and that the semi-circular pincer movement was designed to allow the 6,000 residents the possibility of fleeing eastwards. The massacre took place when the expected wave of flight failed to take place. He also adds that Amos Kenan took part in the assault.<ref name="Pappe">Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,(2007)Oneowlrd Publications 2011 pp.195-198.</ref>
Saleh Abdel Jawad estimates the total deaths were "between 100 and 200".<ref>Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007), Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War, in E. Benvenisti & al, Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, Berlin, Heidelberg, New-York : Springer, pp. 59–127 See page 67.[1]</ref>
Aftermath
UN inspection team
Yigal Allon cabled Général Yitzhak Sadeh to check "the 'rumours' that the 89th Battalion had 'killed many tens of prisoners on the day of the conquest of al-Dawayima', and to respond".<ref name="Morris2004">Morris, 2004, pp. 469-471</ref> On the 5 November, probably worried about a UN investigation, Allon then ordered Sadeh to instruct the unit:
Template:Quote Although unbeknownst to Allon, the 89th had cleaned up the site of the massacre on 1 November 1948.<ref>Morris, 2004, p. 495. endnote 49</ref>
On 7 November, UN inspectors visited the scene of the village to investigate accusations of a massacre, the accusation being made by the Egyptians and refugees from the village. The team found "several demolished buildings and one corpse but no other physical evidence of a massacre".<ref name="Morris2004"/> The UN team did however take a witness statement from the village mukhtar.<ref name="domino.un.org"/>
In a November 8, 1948, letter to Alexander Cadogan of the United Kingdom, as then-president of the UN Security Council, the Israeli government denied any massacre had occurred in the village.<ref name="S/1073">Template:Cite web</ref> Aubrey S. Eban, Israel's representative at the United Nations, claimed Al-Dawayima "had been completely abandoned by its civilian population before it was occupied by Israeli forces in the operations which followed the Egyptian truce violation on October 14th."<ref name="S/1073"/> Eban further claimed none of the "atrocity stories" reported by the Arab League concerning Israeli conduct "has proved to have had the least substance or foundation."<ref name="S/1073"/>
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, but notwithstanding his recommendations no one was put on trial or punished.<ref name="Morris2004"/>
On 14 November the Israeli cabinet instructed Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to also launch an investigation. Its findings remain secret.
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".<ref name="Morris2004"/>
However, Template:Quote
See also
Notes
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References
Bibliography
- Benvenisti, Meron (2002). Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press. Template:ISBN
- Morris, Benny (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Template:ISBN
- Khalidi, Walid (1991). "ALL THAT REMAINS: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948", The Institute of Palestine Studies, Washington, D.C. Template:ISBN