The al-Dawayima massacre describes the killing of civilians by the
Israeli army (IDF) that took place in the
Palestinian Arab
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
town of
al-Dawayima
Al-Dawayima, Dawaymeh or Dawayma ( ar, الدوايمة) was a Palestinian town, located in the former Hebron Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine, and in what is now the Lakhish region, some 15 kilometres south-east of Kiryat Gat.Zafrir Rinat‘Bu ...
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
Operation Yoav (also called ''Operation Ten Plagues'' or ''Operation Yo'av'') was an Israeli military operation carried out from 15–22 October 1948 in the Negev Desert, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Its goal was to drive a wedge between th ...
, encountering little resistance. The battalion was composed of former
Irgun
Irgun • Etzel
, image = Irgun.svg , image_size = 200px
, caption = Irgun emblem. The map shows both Mandatory Palestine and the Emirate of Transjordan, which the Irgun claimed in its entirety for a future Jewish state. The acronym "Etzel" i ...
and
Lehi forces.
Benny Morris has estimated that hundreds of people were killed. Lieutenant-General
John Bagot Glubb
Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM (16 April 1897 – 17 March 1986), known as Glubb Pasha, was a British soldier, scholar, and author, who led and trained Transjordan's Arab Legion between 1939 a ...
, the British commander of Jordan's
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of independent Jordan, with a final Arabization of its command taking place in 1 ...
stated the numbers were much smaller, citing a UN report for a figure of 30 women and children killed. 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
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 130 fighters from the Zionism, Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi (group), Lehi killed at least 107 Palestinian people, Palestinian Arabs, including women and children, in D ...
, in order to avoid
further panic and refugee flight.
['The Dawaymeh Massacre,'](_blank)
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.' The village
mukhtar
A mukhtar ( ar, مختار, mukhtār, chosen one; el, μουχτάρης) is a village chief in the Levant: "an old institution that goes back to the time of the Ottoman rule". According to Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, the muk ...
Hassan Mahmoud Ihdeib, in a sworn statement, estimated the number of victims as 145.
Background
Al-Dawayima's core clan, the Ahdibs, traced their ancestry to the conquest of Palestine by
Umar ibn Khattab
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate ...
in the 7th century.
At the time, it had a population of 6,000 since some 4,000 Palestinian Arab refugees had taken refuge in the village prior to the massacre.
[UN Doc. Com Tech/W.3](_blank)
United Nation Conciliation Commission for Palestine Technical committee Report Submitted by the Arab Refugee Congress Dated 14 June 1949 The
Haganah intelligence service (HIS) considered the village to be 'very friendly'.
Dawayima was situated a few kilometres west of Hebron.
Witness accounts
The village mukhtar's account
According to the village headman, Hassan Mahmoud Ihdeib, half an hour after midday prayers, the village was approached from 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.
The event according to Benny Morris
The letter by Kaplan was published in full in
Haaretz in February 2016.
[ Translation: ] The original of the letter was removed from the archive where it has previously been available.
[
Benny Morris writes:
The soldier-witness, according to Kaplan, said
From the sworn Statement given by the ]Mukhtar
A mukhtar ( ar, مختار, mukhtār, chosen one; el, μουχτάρης) is a village chief in the Levant: "an old institution that goes back to the time of the Ottoman rule". According to Amir S. Cheshin, Bill Hutman and Avi Melamed, the muk ...
of Dawaymeh village, Hassan Mahmaod Ihdeib.
Morris has estimated "hundreds" of people were killed, 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.[ Benny Morris (2004), ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited'', p]
469
[ Benny Morris (2008), ''1948: A History the First Arab-Israeli War'', p. 333.] Saleh Abdel Jawad
Saleh Abd al-Jawad ( ar, صالح عبد الجواد, born 1952) is a Palestinian historian. Born in Al-Bireh
Al-Bireh, al-Birah, or el-Bira ( ar, البيرة; also known historically as Castrum Mahomeria, Magna Mahomeria, Mahomeria Major, B ...
evaluates the total to "between 100 and 200".
Further details according to Ilan Pappe
Ilan Pappe Ilan may refer to:
Organization
* ILAN, Israeli umbrella organization for the treatment of disabled children
Given name
* Ilan (name), a Hebrew/Israeli name
* Ilan Bakhar, a retired Israeli footballer
* Ilan Araújo Dall'Igna, a Brazilian footbal ...
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
Amos Kenan ( he, עמוס קינן), also Amos Keinan, (May 2, 1927 – August 4, 2009) was an Israeli columnist, painter, sculptor, playwright and novelist.
Biography
Amos Levine (later Kenan) was born in south Tel Aviv. His parents were ...
, who had participated in the Deir Yassin massacre, took part in the assault.Ilan Pappe Ilan may refer to:
Organization
* ILAN, Israeli umbrella organization for the treatment of disabled children
Given name
* Ilan (name), a Hebrew/Israeli name
* Ilan Bakhar, a retired Israeli footballer
* Ilan Araújo Dall'Igna, a Brazilian footbal ...
''The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,''
2007)Oneowlrd Publications 2011 pp.195-198.
The UN inspection team
Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon ( he, יגאל אלון; 10 October 1918 – 29 February 1980) was an Israeli politician, commander of the Palmach, and general in the Israel Defense Forces, IDF. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda party and the Labor P ...
cabled Général Yitzhak Sadeh
Yitzhak Sadeh ( he, יצחק שדה, born Izaak Landoberg, August 10, 1890 – August 20, 1952), was the commander of the Palmach and one of the founders of the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel. ...
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".[Morris, 2004, pp]
469
471 On the 5 November, probably worried about a UN investigation, Allon then ordered Sadeh to instruct the unit:
Although unbeknownst to Allon, the 89th had cleaned up the site of the massacre on 1 November 1948.[Morris, 2004, p]
495
endnote 49
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". The UN team did however take a witness statement from the village mukhtar
In a November 8, 1948, letter to Alexander Cadogan
Sir Alexander Montagu George Cadogan (25 November 1884 – 9 July 1968) was a British diplomat and civil servant. He was Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1938 to 1946. His long tenure of the Permanent Secretary's office makes ...
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."
Isser Be'eri
Isser Be'eri ( he, איסר בארי, born Isser Birenzweig; 1901 - January 1958) was the director of the Haganah Intelligence Service in Israel and was responsible for helping to reorganise Israeli intelligence services in 1948, as well as order ...
, 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.
On 14 November the Israeli cabinet instructed Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the nam ...
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".
However,
See also
* Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war
Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and unarmed soldiers.Morris 2008, pp. 404-06.
The historiography of the events has been revisited by the New Historians, starting in the 1980s ...
* 1948 Palestinian exodus
In 1948 more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Palestine's Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war. The exodus was a central component of the fracturing, dispossessi ...
References
Bibliography
* Benvenisti, Meron (2002). ''Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948''. University of California Press.
*Morris, Benny
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
(2004). ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Khalidi, Walid (1991). "ALL THAT REMAINS: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948", The Institute of Palestine Studies, Washington, D.C.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dawayima massacre
Massacres in Mandatory Palestine
Wartime sexual violence
October 1948 events in Asia
Zionist terrorism
1948 massacres of Palestinians