Al-Khisas raid

The al-Khisas raid, also known as the al-Khisas massacre, was an attack on the Palestinian village of al-Khisas carried out by the Palmach on December 18, 1947, during the 1948 Palestine war. 10-15 Palestinian villagers were killed in the attack, including 5 children.

Background

The attack took place during the civil war phase of the 1948 Palestine war and was conducted as a reprisal for the killing of a Jewish man near Al-Khisas.Template:Efn Local Palmach commanders decided to launch a retaliatory attack on the village, arguing that "if there was no reaction to the murder, the Arabs would interpret this as a sign of weakness and an invitation to further attacks".<ref name="Benvenisti">Template:Cite book</ref> The Haganah High Command approved the action on condition that the attack be directed against "men only and they should burn [only] a few houses".<ref name="Benvenisti"/>

The attack

The massacre was carried out by the Palmach's 3rd Battalion, which later became part of the Yiftach Brigade.Template:Cn

According to Haim Levenberg:

One unit attacked with hand-grenades a four-roomed house killing two men and five children, and wounding five other men. At the same time, another unit attacked a house in the village owned by Amir Al-Fa’ur of Syria, in which one Syrian and two Lebanese peasants were killed and another Lebanese and two local men were wounded. According to HQ British Troops in Palestine, the villagers did not use any firearms to defend themselves.<ref name="Levenberg Lewenberg 1993 p. 183">Template:Cite book</ref>

10-15 Palestinian villagers were killed in the attack, 5 of them children.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn

Aftermath and reactions

Following the attack a large number of al-Khisas' residents fled their homes, becoming a part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.Template:Refn

The events led to an escalation in violence that rapidly spread through the Upper Galilee region;<ref name="Benvenisti"/> the region had generally been quiet before the massacre, which was blamed for unnecessarily widening the hostilities.<ref>Abbasi, Mustafa. “The Battle for Safad in the War of 1948: A Revised Study.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 36, no. 1 (2004): 21–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3880136.</ref>

The Jewish leadership at the time sharply criticized the attack.<ref name="Benvenisti"/> Three weeks later, Arab forces crossed the Syrian border and carried out a reprisal attack on the kibbutz Kfar Szold, but suffered heavy losses and were repulsed.<ref name="Benvenisti"/>

During the operation a female member of the battalion had refused to throw a grenade into a room in which she could hear a child crying; following the event the battalion's commander Moshe Kelman argued that women should not be used on front line duties but should be used as "cooks and service people."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

On the night of 5 June 1949, the remaining inhabitants of Khisas were forcibly expelled as part of the 1949–1956 Palestinian expulsions.<ref>Benny Morris, 1948 and After (1990), page 200</ref> Some time after the village was destroyed.<ref name="Benvenisti"/>

See also

• Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war