Why did the massacre of al-Dawayima Palestinian residents not have the same reverberations as the Deir Yasin massacre?
07.06.2025 14:26
In his letter, Kaplan wrote that over the last two weeks he had been listening to stories by soldiers and commanders boasting of their skill in carrying out murders and rapes and how these acts should be considered as stellar “missions” for them. He admitted that his party faced a dilemma: openly circulating this information would have a damaging effect on the image of the new state.
“Occupation and control of all isolated Arab neighborhoods and encirclement of Arab municipal area[s] and termination of its vital services (water, electricity, fuel, etc.).... In case of resistance, the population will be expelled.”
Attacking the village in a military formation and in far superior numbers to defenders, (a battalion of two to three hundred Israeli soldiers with superior arms against a dozen Palestinian farmers armed with old rifles).
PLAN B: Produced in September 1945, emerged in May 1947 and designed to replace Plan A in the context of new developments such as Britain's submission of the problem of Palestine to the United Nations and growing opposition from surrounding Arab states to the Zionist partition plan.
There were two main eyewitnesses to the killings that took place in al-Dawayima: the village mukhtar, Hassan Mahmoud Ihdeib, and an Israeli soldier.
Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration promised a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine with the allusion of a Palestinian state to be established. The latter never happened. The subsequent British Mandate granted full political and civil rights in Palestine to the Jewish minority (which constituted 5% of Palestine population and owned 2% of its land), yet failed to recognize the political rights of the indigenous Palestinian Arab majority who comprised 95% of the population. At the end of the British Mandate which created the problem in the first place, the UN made a proposal (UN resolution 181 on November 29, 1947) to divide Palestine into two parts, 55% to be ruled by the Jewish minority and 45% to be ruled by the Arab Palestinian majority with Jerusalem to be Corpus Separatum. At the time the Jewish immigrant settlers were 30% of the population and controlled only 6% of land in Palestine. Half of the population in the region to be ruled by Jewish people were Palestinian. No forced displacement of population was allowed. The Partition Plan was only a proposal, not binding and it was dropped by the UN in March 1948. The British, whose duty in Palestine included protecting the indigenous Palestinian population, were not only responsible for officializing the Zionist land project but also failed to support Palestinian right for independence and freedom from colonization and to protect them from the depopulation and massacres of Palestinians.
No one dared open their door until it was dark. When they finally emerged from their hiding, they found bodies of their friends strewn in the mosque and courtyard. Others testified that worshippers who were taken away were found murdered outside the village.
Leading up to Israel’s declaration of independence, the Haganah systemically massacred hundreds of Palestinian villages. Ethnic cleansing in the form of murder and mass expulsion paved the way for statehood, as Israeli independence was declared on May 14, the same day as massacres in Abu Shusha and other villages. Many have ended up in the Gaza Strip refugee camps today.
The Egyptian troops withdrew from Bayt Jibrin to Hebron and the people of the villages of Bayt Jibrin and al-Qubayba withdrew along with them in the direction of al-Dawayima and other villages, which meant the Egyptians were completely surrounded in what was later known as the Faluja Pocket. Although Egyptian forces had withdrawn, a single unit in Al Faluja and Iraq Al Manshiya stayed and defended their positions. The Commanding Officer was Assayed Taha. His second in command was Jamal Abd El Nasser, whose integrity and bravery still resonates today. The Haganah intelligence service (HIS) considered the Al-Dawayima village to be 'very friendly'.
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Searching the survivors for valuables, looting women’s Jewelry during the march, to the extent of ripping the ears for ear rings and cutting fingers for rings. (Safsaf, Lydda, Ayn el Zeitoun).
The UN recommendation to divide Palestine into two states heralded a new period of conflict and suffering in Palestine with an uneven battlefield.
A child cried. The patrol cars stopped, reversed and followed the sound. Pointing machine guns at the cave, they ordered everyone out, lined them up in two rows, men in one, women and children in the other.
Prelude of the massacre:
The villagers of Dawayima met the following day to consider their fate. They were utterly alone and abandoned, with Israeli invasion forces were nearby waiting to pounce on them.
Occupying [Arab] front line positions within their territories.
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Preventing return of the expelled refugees, by shooting the returnees, poisoning wells with Typhoid and Cholera, looting their property, burning crops and demolishing their houses.
According to the village's former Mukhtar, interviewed by the Israeli daily Hadashot:
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". On the 5 November, probably worried about a UN investigation, Allon then ordered Sadeh to instruct the unit:
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The Zionist invasion which started in April 1948 led to the depopulation of 220 towns and villages in 6 weeks till 14 May 1948, before the state of Israel was declared while Palestine was supposedly under the British Mandate protection before any regular Arab force could intervene.
The Zionist colonization of Palestine is a project that is so loaded with myths, lies, deception, falsification and complemented with a witch hunt and vilification for all those who expose them.
Hence, the call for the “return” of the Jewish people to ‘their country’. the land of “Milk and Honey”, as this Jewish National Fund (JNF) poster, distributed in 1930, shows to lure European Jews to immigrate to Palestine.
What nonsense did you hear today in India that made you laugh?
The assault was carried out by the 89th commando battalion, which was part of the Israeli army's 8th Armored Brigade, under the command of Yitzhak Sadeh, the founder of the Palmach. The soldiers launched the operation from al-Qubayba in tanks equipped with artillery and machine guns. Upon reaching the outskirts of the village, they split up into sub-groups that attacked the village simultaneously from three directions, opening heavy fire from the north, south, and west while leaving the east open to drive out those who remained. The village had no more than twenty armed men to defend it based on its western side to try to halt the attack. Some of them opened fire with their old rifles, while others massed boulders at the entry points to the village to impede the attackers advance. Meanwhile, a number of the villagers took shelter in the village mosque. Others chose to remain in their homes or fled in the direction of Dura and its surrounding villages. One group hid itself in the nearby caves and grottos.
PLAN D : Of March 1948, This plan was guided by a series of specific operational plans, the broad outlines of which were considered as early as 1944, Plan D was drawn up to expand Jewish-held areas beyond those allocated to the proposed Jewish State in the UN Partition Plan. Its overall objective was to seize as much territory as possible in advance of the termination of the British Mandate — when the Zionist leaders planned to declare their state.
Applying economic pressure on the enemy by besieging ‘some’ of their cities to force them to abandon his activities - i.e. to leave.
In 1863 Victor Guérin visited twice, and he estimated that the village contained 900 inhabitants,while an Ottoman village list from about 1870 found that Dawaime had only a population of 85, in a total of 34 houses, though the population count included men, only. It also noted that it was located west of Hebron.
The Institute for Palestine Studies and The Palestinian Museum note the following about the town's built environment:
The exact number of Palestinian victims of the massacre is unknown but is estimated to have been in the hundreds. The Jewish soldiers who took part in the massacre also reported horrific scenes: babies whose skulls were cracked open, women raped or burned alive in houses, and men stabbed to death. These were not reports delivered years later, but eye-witness accounts sent to the High Command within a few days of the event. This was the end result of the order that the commander of Battalion 89 of Brigade Eight had received from the Chief of Staff, Yigael Yadin:
And as they started to walk, they were shot by machine guns from two sides … We sent people there that night, who collected the bodies, put them into a cistern, and buried them."
Although unbeknownst to Allon, the 89th had cleaned up the site of the massacre on 1 November 1948.
The villagers expanded and renovated the village mosque in the 1930s, and added a tall minaret.
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The prevailing opinion among the main families was to seek help. A delegation went to Al Khalil to meet the Egyptian and Jordanian military commands but found no one willing to meet with them. They returned home demoralized.
The matter of al-Dawayima was raised in December 1948 during an Israeli cabinet committee's discussion of transgressions committed during the 1948 war. Aharon Cizling, the minister of agriculture (from the Mapam Party), said that he considered the soldiers to have committed Nazi-like acts and expressed his dissatisfaction at the lack of a serious investigation. However, along with other ministers, he ultimately agreed that there should not be any official public admission of transgressions so as to safeguard Israel's reputation.
PLAN C: Produced in May 1946, emerged in November/December 1947, in the wake of the UN Partition Plan. It was designed to disrupt Arab defensive operations, and occupy Arab lands situated between isolated Jewish colonies. This was accompanied by a psychological campaign to demoralize the Arab population. By the end of March 1947, the Zionist military operations carried outunder Plan C resulted in the depopulation of 30 Palestinian villages with a combined population of about 22,000 people.
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The well-armed and seasoned Israeli troops greatly outnumbered the defenders of the Palestinian civilian population who had a poor and scattered defense.
43 Palestinian villages were attacked and depopulated at this time. Fourteen of these villages, in Jerusalem District, were decimated by an Israeli military offensive called “Ha Har.” The rest of the villages were expelled by the military offensive called “Yoav,” otherwise named “the Ten Plagues.” Of these, ten villages were in Al Khalil (Hebron) District, including the village of Dawayima. Another fourteen were in the Gaza District, and five were part of the Beer Sheba District, including the district capital, Beer Sheba town.
Al-Dawayima was built on an archaeological site. In addition, a large number of khirbas lay in the vicinity. This suggests intense occupation of the area in the past.
Al Maghaz, a strategic location 11 km southwest of Al Dawayima, was a key position held by Israeli forces. At first, Israeli forces were repelled by Egyptian forcesand volunteers from Dawayima. But after the volunteers returned home, they were shocked to learn that the Egyptian forces had inexplicably abandoned the site at night. The Israelis immediately reoccupied it, leaving Dawayima utterly exposed and vulnerable on the western front.
“Arabim, you must die, so go to Allah.”
In 1883, the PEF's Survey of Western Palestine described al-Dawayima as a village on a high stony ridge that had olive groves beneath it. On a higher ridge to the west stood a shrine that was topped by a white stone.
A soldier ordered another worshiper, “Get in the car. Soon you will rest forever like your friends.”
One of the most savage massacres in this area occurred in the village of Dawayima.
The massacres were used a weapon of ethnic cleansing. The massacres have common features:
In the face of the overwhelming strength of their attackers, the men defending the village abandoned their posts. The Israeli artillery began pounding the village's houses and shooting at those who were trying to escape. By midday, the Zionist forces entered the village from the three directions without any significant resistance and began to carry out a massacre. They did this by targeting any villager they found regardless of age or gender in three stages: first, in their homes and alleyways; second, in the village mosque; and third, in a cave in the Tor al-Zagh area.
“destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up and planting mines in the debris)”
Ben-Gurion also pitched in, saying he heard rumors that the Israeli army had killed 70–80 people. On 14 November the Israeli cabinet instructed Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to also launch an investigation. Its findings remain secret.
Village history:
The Mukhtar's testimony was part of a letter sent on June 14, 1949, by the secretary of the Arab Refugee Congress in Ramallah to the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, which had convened in Lausanne with the participation of Israel and the concerned Arab states. In it, he stated that half an hour after midday prayers on Friday, October 28, 1948, Hassan heard the sound of shooting from the western side of the village. On investigation, the village was approached by three groups of troops from the west, north, and south: 20 armored cars on the Qubeiba-Dawaymeh road, a second group along the Beit Jibrin-Dawaymeh road, and another set of armored cars approaching from Mafkhar-Dawaymeh. The 20 people who were guarding the village were paralyzed with fear; they were posted on the western side of the village. When the armored cars were within half a kilometer from the village, the zionist forces opened fire from automatic weapons and mortars and advanced on the village in a semi-circular movement, thereby surrounding the village on the western, northern, and southern sides.There was no call to surrender announced, and no resistance took place. Following the established routine, the village was surrounded by three flanks, leaving open the eastern flank with the aim of driving out 6,000 people in one hour. When this failed to happen, the troops jumped out of their vehicles, and a number of soldiers disembarked on the village streets and started shooting indiscriminately at anything they saw moving, while the elderly took refuge in the mosque and others in a nearby cave called Iraq El Zagh.The shooting continued for over half an hour. The other villagers started to flee, the mukhtar himself included. However, the following night, he returned to the village with some others to find out what happened to those they had left behind. They found around sixty bodies in the mosque, mostly of the elderly, including his own father. They saw a large number of bodies of men, women, and children in the streets. They then made their way to the cave of Iraq al-Zagh, and at the mouth of the cave they found eighty-five bodies, also of men, women, and children. The count the Mukhtar carried out told him that 455 people were missing, among them around 170 children and women.
Launching pre-planned counter-attacks on enemy-bases in the heart of its territory wherever it is, including outside Palestine.
As the soldiers approached, the villagers hid close to the walls of the cave in silence.
Plan D objectives included:
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. 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." 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."
"They told them to come out and get into line and start to walk.
"Shops were scattered throughout the various neighborhoods of the village center. Houses were made of stone and mud, separated by narrow streets and alleys. The older houses were clustered closely together. Each set of houses shared a hawsh, a large courtyard that provided space for women to do their domestic chores, for children to play, and for families to gather in the evening and on special occasions. As the village expanded people began to build new houses outside of the village core. These new houses were larger and built of whitewashed stone some of them had thick, stone walls and were called jidaris (from the Arabic word for wall, jidar)....Each house had two levels: the upper level was occupied by the family members and the lower level by their animals. The houses of the well-to-do villagers had their own courtyards and large guest rooms, in addition to animal stables."
The worshippers yelled the shehadah, a testament Muslims make before death—I testify there is one God and Mohammad is his messenger. The Mosque Imam (Sheikh Mohammad Mutlaq Al Ghwanimah) screamed as he was hit, “Akh.. ya Allah.” A shot rang out and the imam fell on the floor.
Further reading: Survivor testimonies from al-Dawayima massacre, 1948.
Al-Dawayima had about thirty to fifty small shops, ten butchers, and two grain mills. The economy of the village became more dynamic in 1944 with the introduction of a weekly Friday market. The market brought in residents from other villages and towns, including Bayt Jibrin, Hebron, and Gaza, who traded in produce, clothes, pastry, and other goods. The market was held on the village's threshing floor and was called the suq al-barrayn ('the market of the two terrains') because it was believed to combine the trade of the mountains and the plains.
The soldier recalls that they encountered no fighting or resistance in al-Dawayima and that the first wave of troops that attacked killed between 80-100 Arabs, smashing the skulls of children with sticks. There was not a house without dead. Then another batch blockaded all those who had remained home without food and water, and brought explosives engineers to blow up the houses with the people alive inside them.The soldier narrates how one commander ordered the sapper to put two elderly women into a house and then blow it up. The sapper refused to carry out the order, but it was still carried out by other soldiers, and the evil deed was done. He also tells the story of a woman with a newborn who was ordered to clean the backyard of a house where the soldiers were eating. She worked for a day or two, after which she and her infant were shot dead.
The villagers obtained part of their drinking water from wells that collected rainwater. In the 1940s they drilled three new wells. During this period they also built numerous cisterns for collecting rainwater. Rainfed agriculture was an important basis of al-Dawayima's economy. The chief crops included a variety of grains, especially wheat, barley, corn, lentils, olives, and other vegetables and fruits, especially figs and grapes, were also cultivated.
To prevent the return of refugees.
'Your preparations should include psychological warfare and "treatment" (tipul) of citizens as an integral part of the operation.'
That myth continued although French, German and notably British scholars wrote volumes and drew maps of over a thousand Palestinian towns and villages in Palestine. These same villages were recorded in the books, seventeen centuries earlier, by Palestinian Bishop Eusebius in 313 AD.
Now coming back to your question here on Quora : Why did the massacre of al-Dawayima residents not have the same reverberations as the Deir Yasin massacre?
In cities, the plan called for:
A well-known Israeli writer, Amos Keinan, who participated in the Deir Yassin massacre and this massacre, confirmed its existence in an interview he gave in the late 1990s to the Palestinian actor and film maker Muhammad Bakri, for Bakri's documentary “1948”.
On the Palestinian side, Britain manipulated rations of ammunitions to the armies of Egypt and (particularly) Jordan. The Palestinians had about 2,500 militia men dispersed among a dozen towns and several hundred villages. They had old rifles, few machine guns, no artillery and no tanks. They had no central command and no wireless communications. At best they were only able to mount defensive operations, rushing to a village after hearing cries for help.
Attacking a village even though a peace agreement between the settlers and the people of the village was agreed before the attack.
This extraordinary and swift conquest of vast territory was done with terror and bloodshed. We record 4 massacres and one atrocity with many separate cases of killing, looting, rape and destruction.
The majority of these returnees were killed. Some were captured and taken to a concentration camp at Sarafund. Thousands were put to hard labour, digging trenches for the invading forces, carrying ammunitions and explosives, burying the dead and carry the loot from Arab homes into Israeli trucks.
Al-Dawayima had an elementary school that was opened in the village in 1937.
that is accused of murdering Arab civilians at Dawayima to go to the village and bury with their own hands the corpses of those murdered.
At sunset on Thursday October 28th, a military Jeep with an officer and three soldiers approached the village. People rushed to meet it believing it was an advanced force to help them. Speaking Arabic, the officer asked them about their defense positions. He looked in his binoculars to see where the Israelis were. He instructed them to remain calm, as help was coming. But these soldiers were an undercover Israeli Reconnaissance party.
Plan D was put into action on or around April 2, 1948. By this time, the size of Zionist forces had reached 65,000, several times greater than the number of Arab defenders, whether they were the Palestinian villagers, the Muslim Brothers from Egypt or the motley assortment of Arab Liberation Army (ALA). The lack of serious action by the British to protect civilians encouraged Ben Gurion to ratchet up the scale of offensive operations. In a series of simultaneous offensives, all the spaces and strategic points separating Jewish colonies were occupied by Zionist forces.
In April 1948, the total strength of the Zionist militia was 65,000, many were well trained and led by veteran European officers of WWII. The Zionists also were able to manufacture ammunition and armored vehicles and, as such, were not harmed by the arms embargo imposed by Britain. On the other hand, the Palestinians were defenseless, without a single command, wireless or armor. The Arab irregular volunteers who came to help were a motley, ineffective group which caused more damage than gave support. This contradicts Israel’s claim that, in expelling Palestinians, it was acting in self defense and that the refugees’ exodus was an accident of war, not an Israeli plan.
the mosque and watched as soldiers jumped out of their cars and headed to the mosque. The old mystics of the Darawish religious order, pleaded with them, “do not kill us.” The soldiers laughed. Their leader said:
The soldier-witness, according to Kaplan, also said:
Company B entered al Zawiya mosque where the elderly and disabled men were at their Friday prayers. Ten year old Khalil mohamad Mahmoud Salim Hudaib would later recount what he witnessed.
The massacre of the village of al-Dawayima is considered to be one of the major massacres of the 1948 War, and perhaps the most horrific. Unlike massacres carried out by Zionist paramilitary groups, such as Deir Yasin on 9 April, the perpetrators of the al-Dawayima Massacre were regular armed forces with operational planning capacity. They were part of the armed forces of the new state that, having firmly established its presence, was seeking recognition by the international community and was preparing its application to become a member state of the UN, which meant a pledge to respect all the commitments specified by its charter. Moreover, the massacre of al-Dawayima was not followed by condemnations from Palestinians and Arabs; more than three decades passed before it received attention from scholars and the media.
According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi:
The mukhtar also said that about 35 families were hiding in caves outside the village, including some from the previously occupied village of al-Qubayba. When the Israeli soldiers discovered them:
The depopulation of 560 Palestinian towns and villages in 1948 by Zionist militia and Israeli army could not have happened without an organized campaign of massacres and atrocities, of which 156 were recorded in Table 3.2 Atlas of Palestine 1917- 1966.
In the five months that followed the UN Partition Plan in November 1947, the villagers and other resistance fighters in the Hebron hills engaged in fierce, grueling battles with the Zionist forces such as the one with the settlement of Gush Etzion. In October 1948, the fighting came closer to al-Dawayima, particularly when the Israeli forces were able to occupy a number of nearby villages, starting with al-Maqhaz. They were trying to cut off the Egyptian troops who were stationed in the villages of Iraq al-Manshiyya and al-Faluja and to establish a direct connection with the settlements north of the Bayt Jibrin–al-Faluja battle line.
Attacking the village before a state was declared while Palestine was under the protection of the British Mandate till 14 May 1948, thus causing the depopulation of 220 towns and villages, which comprise half the total refugees today.
The Israeli attackers remained in the village several more days, at least for a week. They burned the houses to destroy evidence of their crimes. The stench of burned flesh filled the air.
Matters became grave in the latter half of October when Israel decided to break the Second Truce with the Arab armies and launch Operation Yoav in southern Palestine. Its attacking forces renewed their assault on al-Faluja and Iraq al-Manshiyya, which made the capture of al-Dawayima and its neighboring villages imminent. The young men of the village began organizing nightly guard duty to be prepared for any potential attack.
Perhaps the most realistic explanation was the one offered by the secretary of the Arab Refugee Congress in Ramallah, who said that the Arab Legion (the Transjordanian military force posted in the Hebron region) feared that spreading of the news of what took place in al-Dawayima would result in a similar wave of mass exodus as was the case with Deir Yasin. More likely, the Jordanians feared accusations being rightly leveled against them for their impotence and lack of action.
Expulsion: Forced march of the survivors towards another village, not yet occupied, against two rows of Zionist soldiers, shooting at their feet and over their heads. (Abu Shusha, Lydda).
That did not stop Gold Meir to say infamously in 1969, that “there is no such thing as Palestinians”.
Dawayima was located at the eastern extremity of the area occupied during this period of Israeli invasion.
Introduction:
One Zionist militia was the Haganah, who would become the core of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Between 1920 and 1948, the Haganah was a Jewish terrorist organization that executed raids and massacres over Palestinian villages, resulting in an ethnic cleansing executed through a combination of brute force and intimidation to local villagers.
In the first three months of 1948, Jewish terrorists carried out numerous operations, blowing up buses and Palestinian homes. Ethnic cleansing became apparent, as Palestinians were murdered and expelled from their lands for the mere reason of their identity and ownership over desired land. The UN Council for Human Rights defines ethnic cleansing as a regime’s desire to impose ethnic rule on a mixed area with the use of acts of expulsion and other violent means. Ethnic cleansing has come to be considered a crime against humanity, punishable by international law.
Israeli historian Benny Morris estimated "hundreds" of people were killed. Reports in the Hebron police headquarters pointed to the killing of around 200 of the villagers of al-Dawayima who had taken refuge in the village mosque, most of them elderly and not physically capable of fleeing. The command of the Egyptian garrison in Bethlehem reported that there were 500 victims, while the American consul in Jerusalem wrote in his report that based on the news that had reached him, between 500 and 1,000 Arabs were killed in al-Dawayima. The village mukhtar himself said that he had tallied the number of victims at 455 and had delivered a list with the names of the victims to the Transjordanian military governor. The mukhtar reported also that there were other victims among those who had taken refuge in the village earlier, but the number of which he was unable to determine.
Equally important to the village economy was animal husbandry. There were twenty-seven clans, or hamulas, in the village, and every hamula owned an average of 200 to 300 head of goats or sheep, and a few camels and cows.The villagers pastured their animals on the large blocs of uncultivated land nearby. In addition to agriculture and animal husbandry, the villagers engaged in the spinning and weaving of tents and sacks for storing grain. They also tanned hides and wove baskets for the market.
Occupying and controlling the enemy’s bases in rural and urban areas.
“encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be wiped out and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”
Seizing and controlling all government services, including post, telephone, police stations,roads, railways, airports and ports, and denying such services to the enemy.
Killing many men in groups and forcing survivors to dig trenches and bury them there. (Tantura, Bi’na, Majd el Kuroum, Eilaboun).
Those who managed to escape went east in the direction of Bayt Awwa and even to Dura which is much further east. Others hid in nearby caves a few kilometers to the south. Thirty-five families hid in a cave. But they were tracked by two Israeli vehicles.
To verify the accuracy of Ihdeib's claim, the journalist brought four laborers and accompanied him to the spot he had indicated to dig inside the intended well. Indeed, there they discovered human remains – bones and skeletons in a pile and three skulls, including one belonging to a small child – after which the workers stopped digging. Having verified that a massacre had taken place, the journalist went ahead and published her article on 24 August 1984.
"The site has been fenced in. A cowshed, a chicken coop, and granaries have been built at its center (which has been leveled). The southern side of the site contains stone terraces and the remnants of a house. The eastern side is occupied by the residential area of the moshav."
The commander of the force was Dov Chesis of the Eighty Ninth Battalion of the 8th Armored Brigade.
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, the village had a population of 2,441 inhabitants, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 2,688, still all Muslim, in a total of 559 houses.
All massacres are barbarous. But nothing exceeds the determined barbarity of the massacre of Al-Dawayima described here.
The Sapper (explosives expert) was the Bulgarian Yaakov (Sika) Aharoni. The officer responsible for the whole operation was the Russian Yaakov (Yashka) Eliav. The acting commanding officer was Ephraim Brill, assisted by Naphtali Erbeil. Abraham Vared was one of the foot soldiers.
Deliberate terror. Grabbing a child and splitting his head with an axe. Telling his mother go and tell others. (Abu Shusha).
Around 10.30 or 11.00 am, the Israeli force stopped at Rasm al Arous to survey their surroundings through binoculars. In this position, they would not have been visible to the villagers, as they were separated by undulating land and thick groves. The Israeli force then split into three.
It started with 19th century myth that Palestine was an empty land. That was instigated by Europeans who wanted to get rid of their Jewish compatriots by calling for their “restoration” to their imagined empty country, Palestine.
Since 1945, the Haganah designed and implemented four general military plans, ultimately leading to the creation of Israel and the dispossession of the Palestinians:
cultured officers ... had turned into base murderers and this not in the heat of battle ... but out of a system of expulsion and destruction. The less Arabs remained—the better. This principle is the political motor for the expulsions and the atrocities.
The people of al-Dawayima were Muslims. They maintained several religious shrines, chief among them the shrine of Shaykh ´Ali. This shrine had a large courtyard, a number of rooms, and one large hall for prayers, and was surrounded by fig and carob trees and cactuses. It attracted visitors from the neighboring villages. A mosque was located in the village center, it was maintained by the followers of al-tariqa al-khalwatiyya, a Sufi mystic order founded by Shaykh Umar al-Khalwati who died in 1397.
The people of Dawayima came to the aid of their neighbours when Israelis attacked, and they prepared to defend themselves, as it became clear they were also in imminent danger.
The Haganah rebranded themselves as Israel Defense Army (IDF), the irony of the term “defense” notwithstanding. It reached a strength of 120,000 soldiers divided into 9 brigades, which carried out 31 “military operations” in 1948.
Plan D also called for the:
The Israeli soldier's testimony was recorded by S. Kaplan , one of the members of the Mapam Party , who included it as part of a letter he sent to the editor-in-chief of the party newspaper Al-HaMishmar on 8 November 1948, nine days after the massacre occurred. The letter remained suppressed until the Israeli historian Benny Morris discovered it by chance and referred to it in his book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem published in 1987. (The letter was published in full in Haaretz newspaper in 2016.)
In the 1945 statistics, Al-Dawayima had a population of 3,710 Muslims, with a total land area of 60.585 dunums of land. By 1944/45, 21,191 dunums of village land were allotted to cereals, 1,206 dunums were irrigated or used for orchards, while 179 dunams were built-up (urban) areas. The rugged terrain around the village was covered with trees, such as oaks and suwayd (Rhamnus Palestina). In 1948, the village had a population of 4,304 which consisted of several clans and families.
The village was located in an area of skirmishes between the locals and the Israeli colonies after the end of the Mandate and the departure of the British army. The people of al-Dawayima set up a local committee to handle the defense of the village and purchase weapons. This committee bought several rifles and small quantities of ammunition from some Egyptians.
On 29 October 1948, as the villagers were finishing Friday prayers, news came that the Zionist forces had reached the outskirts of the village. Those who remained headed to Dawayima’s weekly market, as was their habit to buy and sell supplies. An unknown man appeared on horseback, agitated, shouting incoherently, and galloping left and right before racing off. It was an unnerving occurrence, which some would later recall as an omen.
Al-Dawayima was one of the largest villages in the Hebron subdistrict. It was located 24 km from the city of Hebron and was less than 500 meters above sea level. It spread along the top of a wide rocky ridge on the western side of the Hebron Mountains. To its north lay the village of Bayt Jibrin, to the east Dura and Idna, to the west al-Qubayba and Arab al-Jabbarat, and to the south the farmland of Dura. Al-Dawayima was shaped like a star, allowing businesses to expand in all directions.The village was known for its many ancient Roman ruins. It was famous for its olive groves and was the location of one of the most important farmer's markets in the region every Friday, suq al-barrein (“the bi-terrain market”), named by the villagers in reference to its produce from both hilly and flat regions. Some scholars have estimated that the Dawayma is located in the spot of the village of Bishkeh mentioned in the Old Testament (Joshua 15:39), meaning high or rocky. The village had good trade relations with Hebron, Gaza, and surrounding villages as well as the cities of Jaffa and Haifa. The village had several holy and archaeological significant sites.
One Darwish cried, “ ya Allah. Allahu Akbar...”. A soldier mocked him, “go, die because you are akbar (great),” then he shot him.
In the late Ottoman era, in May, 1838, Edward Robinson visited during harvesting time. He noted that Al-Dawayima was situated on a hill, with a view of several villages to the east. During the harvest, several Christians from Beit Jala were employed here as labourers; the barley harvest was coming to an end, while the wheat harvest was just beginning. He further noted it as a Muslim village, between the mountains and Gaza, but subject to the government of el-Khulil.
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.
The mukhtar gave his testimony again in 1984 to an Israeli journalist for the newspaper Hadashot, where he gave additional details; for example, the villagers who had taken shelter in the caves were discovered by the attacking troops. They were ordered to form one single line and march eastwards. As they started to walk, the Israelis opened fire on them. He also recalled that some people returned the following night to bury the bodies in a well.
Plan D outlined a strategy of total war. The Plan called for the:
While Britain occupied Palestine and formed the British Mandate, the Jewish Zionist movement infiltrated Palestinian lands as they planned to enforce a state of Israel.
At noon Friday, just after Friday prayer, Khalil hid with his parents in their house next to
After the massacre, the Israeli soldiers dug trenches and mined roads in case villagers returned. Some villagers returned to rescue an any remaining survivors, to bury the dead, or to recover some needed supplies left in their houses.
These massacres and subsequent intimidations were led by groups such as the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi (Stern Gang) and resulted in the massive expulsion of Palestinians from their homes, businesses and land in both cities and rural areas.
Attacking the village from 3 directions leaving the fourth open for the expulsion towards the fourth direction. The fourth escape route was directed towards the north in Galilee, to the east in central Palestine and to the south in southern Palestine.
PLAN A: Drawn up in February 1945 to complement the political aim of a unilateraldeclaration of independence. It was designed to suppress Palestinian Arab resistance to the Zionist take-over of parts of Palestine.
The Israeli intent to kill was apparent from the onset of the Yoav offensive. Israeli historian Yair Auoron wrote in Haaretz:
Upon realizing that no one was coming to their defense, terror stricken villagers began to flee. Some packed a few belongings and took the women, elderly, and children on their donkeys and camels eastward, toward the caves, which are common in the area, or to neighbouring villages that were still standing.
Occupying [Arab] important high-ground positions within the [Hebrew] state according to the Partition Plan or beyond.
What ensued was a series of strategic massacre operations on Palestinian villages in the lead-up to an Israeli State Independence, causing a massive ethnic cleansing under the name of this new Jewish state.
“Yigal Alon, the commander of the southern front, recalled: ‘Tonight the brigade will take the revenge Tonight, all the days of grief of the besieged alliance will be avenged.’”
"The people fled, and everyone they saw in the houses they shot and killed. They also killed the people in the streets. They came and blew up my house, in the presence of eye-witnesses (…) The moment that the tanks came and opened fire, I left the village immediately. At about half-past ten, the two tanks passed the Darawish Mosque. About 75 old people were there, who had come early for Friday prayers.They gathered in the mosque to pray. They were all killed."
The massacre:
Finding women huddled in a cave or a hiding place and terrorizing them. Taking men away, killing them and throwing bodies in a well (Dawayima, Safsaf)
In 1955, the Israelis established the colonial settlement of Amatzya on a portion of the rubble of al-Dawayima. All that remained intact was the Sufi Shrine of Shaykh Ali, located at the top of a plateau southwest of the village, surrounded by pine and oak trees.
The survivors who managed to reach Hebron informed the UN observers and Arab officials that the Israelis had re-enacted the Deir Yassin massacre in al-Dawayima. The UN made three requests that the Israelis allow its observers to visit the village to investigate; each request was rejected. Then on 8 November, permission was granted to two UN officers to visit the village. The two observers noticed that smoke was still coming out from a number of houses, and some of them were giving off a strange smell that resembled something like burnt bones. Wassenhove, one of the UN inspectors, was not permitted to enter the homes. When they demanded to inspect the village mosque, an Israeli officer told them they could not enter mosques out of respect for tradition, but a quick glance was enough to confirm that the Israeli soldiers had obviously desecrated the place. Then the Israelis prevented them from examining the other end of the village on the pretext that the Arabs had planted land mines there. However, one of the observers remained skeptical, as the sector in question directly faced the front line with the Arab armies and it would not have made any sense for the Arabs to plant land mines there. When it came to evacuating civilians, the Israelis denied having used force to expel them and even claimed that the villagers fled when the Arab forces withdrew from the area. At one point during their investigation, the team happened upon the body of a Palestinian civilian. Israeli officials accompanying the team prevented further examination of the body.
Ethnic cleansing was made possible by the great disparity between the strength of the Jewish forces and the native inhabitants of Palestine. The former had 185,000 able-bodied Jewish males aged 16-50, mostly military-trained, and many were veterans of WWII. Jewish armaments were superior to those held by Palestinians. More importantly, Jewish soldiers had small arms and armored vehicles factories and an unlimited amount of locally-produced ammunition.
After the village was taken, for no military reason, men, women, children were killed. Random, brutal killing. Going from house to house killing people. Killing passers bye in the street or the road.
News of the massacre reached village communities in western Hebron "possibly precipitating further flight". After the massacre, the survivors from al-Dawayima dispersed. At first, a number of them remained in the villages and ancient ruins near the ceasefire line waiting to return to their village. Then, most of them went to refugee camps, including Ein al-Sultan in Jericho, and the camps of al-Arroub and al-Fawwar in the Hebron governorate. Some went to other areas in the West Bank and another group went to refugee camps in Jordan.
Following the infamous Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 and the onset of the British Mandate on Palestine in 1922, to secure the establishment of a free independent Palestine, Palestine witnessed a flood of Jewish European settlers, carrying with them the Zionist ideology of colonial settlement in Palestine. Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology that advocates for an exclusively Jewish ethnostate built on Palestinian land and the total removal of the people of the land, the Palestinians, by any and all means. Zionism is inherently racist in its exclusivity and anti- Palestinian because it is only feasible through the ethnic cleansing and constant uprooting of the Palestinian people, which is seen throughout massacres of over 500 Palestinian villages in and around 1948 and continued into today with Israeli state-lead violence on the Palestinian people and illegal annexation of Palestinian lands.
The new Plan D had wide-ranging objectives. It was this Plan that was finally implemented.
It turned out that the myth that Palestine was “empty” was a PLAN to make it empty by ethnic cleansing and massacres of its Palestinian inhabitants.
They came, particularly after WWII, in armed formations of over 100,000 soldiers to depopulate hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages, commit dozens of massacres and turn survivors to refugees, denied the right to return home, till today.