The Deir Yassin massacre took place on 9 April 1948, when Zionist paramilitaries attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, then part of Mandatory Palestine, killing at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children. 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.
On the morning of 9 April, Irgun and Lehi forces entered the village from different directions. 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. The inexperienced militias encountered resistance from armed villagers and suffered some casualties. The Haganah directly supported the operation, providing ammunition and covering fire, and two Palmach squads entered the village as reinforcement. A number of villagers were taken captive and paraded through West Jerusalem before being executed.
In addition to the killing, there was widespread looting and there may have been cases of mutilation and rape. For decades, it was believed that 254 Palestinian Arabs had been killed, although present scholarship puts the death toll at around 110. By the end of the operation, all of the villagers had been expelled and the Haganah took control of the village. 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. 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. Four days after the Deir Yassin massacre, on 13 April, a reprisal attack on the Hadassah medical convoy in Jerusalem ended in a massacre killing 78 Jews, most of whom were medical staff. Material in Israeli military archives documenting the Deir Yassin massacre remains classified.
Background
Political and military situation
The attack on Deir Yassin took place a few months after the beginning of the 1947-1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, which broke out after the announcement of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which sought to divide Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states.
Operation Nachshon was a Haganah operation to open the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road, which had been blockaded by Palestinian Arabs as part of the Battle for Jerusalem, leaving the 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem with limited food, fuel or munitions. Historian Benny Morris writes that "the most important event during Operation Nahshon was probably the conquest by the IZL and LHI, assisted by the Haganah, of the village of Deir Yassin" and that the Palmach also assisted. Ilan Pappé writes that the Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah "were united into one military army during the days of the Nakba (although [...] they did not always act in unison and coordination)", and that Operation Nachshon was "the first operation in which all the various Jewish military organisations endeavoured to act together as a single army – providing the basis for the future Israeli Defence Forces (IDF)".
Plan Dalet and the role of the Haganah
Historians Ilan Pappé and Walid Khalidi consider the attack to have been a part of Plan Dalet, which Pappé calls "a blueprint for ethnic cleansing". In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), Pappé writes that:
"The systematic nature of Plan Dalet is manifested in Deir Yassin, a pastoral and cordial village that had reached a non-aggression pact with the Hagana in Jerusalem, but was doomed to be wiped out because it was within the areas designated in Plan Dalet to be cleanse".
Walid Khalidi also emphasized "the connection between the Haganah’s “Plan Dalet” [...] and what happened in Deir Yassin, explicitly linking the expulsion of the inhabitants to the Haganah’s overall planning". Khalidi states that the Haganah was involved in the attack on Deir Yassin through all stages, coordinating with and sending in the Irgun and Lehi forces, as well as participating in the fighting directly.
Prior to the attack on Deir Yassin the Haganah had conducted a number of wartime massacres such as the Al-Khisas raid on 18 December 1947, the Balad Al-Shayk massacre on 31 December 1947, and the Sa'sa' massacre on 14 February 1948.
Pappé considers that the Haganah sent in the Irgun and Lehi "to absolve themselves from any official accountability."
Irgun and Lehi militias
Most of the Jewish forces that attacked Deir Yassin belonged to two extremist, underground, militias, the Irgun (Etzel, abbreviated IZL) (National Military Organization), led by Menachem Begin, and the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, abbreviated F.F.I.), also known as the Stern Gang, after their first leader Avraham Stern, both aligned with the right-wing Revisionist Zionist movement.
Formed in 1931, Irgun was a militant group that broke away from the mainstream Jewish militia, the Haganah. During the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, in which Palestinian Arabs rose up against the British mandate authorities in protest at Jewish mass immigration into the country, Irgun's tactics had included bus and marketplace bombings, condemned by both the British and the Jewish Agency. Lehi, an Irgun splinter group, was formed in 1940 following Irgun's decision to declare a truce with the British during World War II. Lehi subsequently carried out a series of assassinations designed to force the British out of Palestine. In April 1948, it was estimated that the Irgun had 300 fighters in Jerusalem, and Lehi around 100.
The Lehi were viewed as fringe extremists.
Both groups had committed numerous terror attacks against the British and the Arabs and historian Matthew Hogan writes that:
"Another organizational ethos, deliberate terror, undoubtedly constituted a principal factor in the massacre. The Irgun's self-admitted operational tactics were 'terror, bombs, [and] assassination'."
Deir Yassin would be their first proper military operation and the groups were keen to show their rival, the Haganah, their combat prowess. The two groups often worked together near Jerusalem. They had already attempted a small joint operation the previous year. On 21 April 1947, an Irgun militant joined a Lehi suicide operation, with the personal approval of Irgun commander Menachem Begin.
The Deir Yassin massacre, and the militants who blew themselves up, are now featured in the Lehi Museum in Tel Aviv. The exhibit about the Deir Yassin says, "The village was conquered in a joint Lehi-Irgun operation".
Deir Yassin
Deir Yassin was a Palestinian Arab village of several hundred residents, all Muslim, living in 144 houses. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that there were 400 residents; Yoav Gelber writes that there were 610, citing the British mandatory authority figures; and Begin's biographer, Eric Silver, 800 to 1,000. Walid Khalidi writes that the population was approximately 750.
The village was situated on a hill 800 meters above sea level and two kilometers south of the Tel Aviv highway. It bordered West Jerusalem's Jewish suburbs; Givat Shaul, an Orthodox community, just across the valley 700 meters to the northeast, and Beit HaKerem to the southeast. The closest Arab towns were Qalunya a few kilometers to the northwest and Ein Karem a few kilometers to the southwest, where the Arab Liberation Army had set up a base. Cutting through Ein Karem and Deir Yassin was the Sharafa ridge (Mount Herzl), a strategically important elevation that the Haganah had taken earlier.
The village's prosperity was one reason for the assault, and when the village was captured there was widespread looting and robbery of its residents.
By most accounts, the villagers lived in peace with their Jewish neighbors, particularly those in Givat Shaul, some of whom reportedly tried to help the villagers during the Irgun–Lehi massacre.
Peace pact
On 20 January 1948, the villagers met leaders of the Givat Shaul community to form a peace pact. The Deir Yassin villagers agreed to inform Givat Shaul should Palestinian militiamen appear in the village, by hanging out certain types of laundry during the day—two white pieces with a black piece in the middle—and at night signaling three dots with a flashlight and placing three lanterns in a certain place. In return, patrols from Givat Shaul guaranteed safe passage to Deir Yassin residents, in vehicles or on foot, passing through their neighborhood on the way to Jerusalem. Yoma Ben-Sasson, Haganah commander in Givat Shaul, said after the village had been captured that, "there was not even one incident between Deir Yassin and the Jews." The view was echoed in a secret Haganah report which stated that the village had stayed "faithful allies of the western [Jerusalem] sector".
Gelber viewed it is unlikely that the peace pact between Deir Yassin and Givat Shaul continued to hold in April, given the intensity of hostilities between the Arab and Jewish communities elsewhere. On 4 April the Haganah affiliated daily Davar reported that "[t]he western neighborhoods of Jerusalem, Beit Hakerem and Bayit Vagan, was attacked on Sabbath night (2 April) by fire from the direction of Deir Yassin, Ein Kerem and Colonia." Over the next few days, the Jewish community at Motza and Jewish traffic on the road to Tel Aviv came under fire from the village. On 8 April, some villagers from Deir Yassin took part in the defence of the Arab village of al-Qastal, which the Jews had invaded days earlier: the names of several Deir Yassin residents appeared on a list of wounded compiled by the British Palestine police.
Relationship with Arab militia fighters
Arab militiamen had tried to set up camp in the village, leading to a firefight that saw one villager killed. Just before 28 January, Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni had arrived with 400 men and tried to recruit some villagers, but the elders voiced their opposition and the men moved on. The leader of the village, the mukhtar, was summoned to Jerusalem to explain to the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the Palestinian Arab leadership, what the village's relationship was with the Jews: he told them the villagers and the Jews lived in peace. No steps were taken against him, and he was not asked to cancel the peace pact.
In February, Arab irregular fighters killed the sheep in Deir Yassin as a retaliation for the village not allowing their forces to use Deir Yassin as base from which to attack Givat Shaul. On 16 March, the AHC sent a delegation to the village to request that it host a group of Iraqi and Syrian irregulars to guard it. The villagers said no then, and again on 4 April. Benny Morris notes that Menachem Begin at the time didn't mention attacks from the village or a presence of foreign militiamen as he would do years later. Yoav Gelber also writes that there is no evidence of militiamen in the village and finds no reason to believe that there were any.
Planning
It remains unclear the exact extent the Haganah coordinated with the Irgun and Lehi in their attack on Deir Yassin, although at the very least Haganah commander David Shaltiel preapproved of the attack (with some sources describing this approval as having been given "reluctantly"). Shaltiel suggested attacking Ein Karem instead, but the Lehi and Irgun commanders complained that this would be too hard for them. Shaltiel ultimately yielded, on condition that the attackers would continue to occupy the village rather than destroying it, lest its ruins be used by Arab militias which would force the Jews to reconquer it. Shaltiel wrote a letter to both Lehi commander Yehoshua Zettler and Irgun commander Mordechai Raanan, stating:
"I have heard that you are planning to carry out an operation against Deir Yassin. I should like to draw your attention to the fact that the capture of Deir Yassin and holding it is a stage in our overall plan. I have nothing against your carrying out the operation, on condition that you have the forces to hold it."
Shaltiel's approval of the operation met resistance within the Haganah. Pa'il objected to violating the peace pact with the village, but Shaltiel maintained that he had no power to stop them. Pa'il said in 1998 that Levi had proposed that the inhabitants be notified, but Shaltiel had refused to endanger the operation by warning them. David Siton of Lehi claimed he also protested because the village was docile:
I said that an operation like that would hurt the Jewish neighborhoods in the western part of the city, but IZL people said that the inhabitants of Deir Yassin were getting ready to attack Jewish neighborhoods. We checked, and found out it was not true. Our chaps entered the village, talked to the Arabs and heard from then that they were not interested in harming the Jews, and that they are men of peace.
According to Morris, it was agreed during planning meetings that the residents would be expelled. Lehi further proposed that any villagers who failed to flee should be killed to terrify the rest of the country's Arabs. According to the testimony of the commander of the operation, Ben-Zion Cohen, most of the Irgun and Lehi fighters at preparatory meetings agreed the aim should be one of the "liquidation of all the men in the village and any other force that opposed us, whether it be old people, women, or children."