The Deir Yassin massacre was the killing of between 107 and 120 Palestinian villagers,[1] the estimate generally accepted by scholars,[2][3] during and possibly after the battle[4][5] at the village of Deir Yassin (also written as Dayr Yasin or Dir Yassin) near Jerusalem in the British Mandate of Palestine by Jewish irregular forces (Irgun and Lehi) between 9 April and 11 April 1948. It occurred while Jewish Yishuv forces fought to break the siege of Jerusalem during the period of civil war that preceded the end of the Mandate.
Contemporary reports, originating apparently from a commanding officer in Jerusalem of one of the irregular forces involved (the Irgun), Mordechai Ra'anan[6], gave an initial estimate of 254 killed.[7] The size of the figure had a considerable impact on the conflict in creating panic and became a major cause of the 1948 Palestinian exodus.[7][8]
The massacre was universally condemned at the time, including repudiations from the Haganah command and the Jewish Agency.[9]
Eyewitness accounts
Meir Pa'il's eyewitness account is one of the most detailed single eye witness accounts of the massacre, as he claims to have been at the scene while it happened. Pa'il was a spy for the mainstream Jewish organizations in Palestine monitoring the activities of the right-wing or "dissident" groups. He stated that he:
"... started hearing shooting in the village. The fighting was over, yet there was the sound of firing of all kinds from different houses ... Sporadic firing, not like you would [normally] hear when they clean a house.". He also stated that no commanders directed the actions, just groups of guerillas running about "full of lust for murder".[44]
Historian Uri Milstein says: "On a massacre following the battle there is only the account of Me’ir Pa’il, who claims that he was in the village during and after the battle," and notes that Irgun members denied seeing Pa’il there. [45]
Mordechai Gihon's eyewitness account: Mordechai Gihon was a Haganah intelligence officer in Jerusalem. He was in the village at the afternoon of 9 April. He reported:-
"Before we got to the village we saw people carrying bodies to the quarry east of Deir Yassin. We entered the village around 3:00 in the afternoon . . . In the village there were tens of bodies. The dissidents got them out of the roads. I told them not to throw the bodies into cisterns and caves, because that was the first place that would be checked..."
"I didn't count the dead. I estimated that there were four pits full of bodies, and in each pit there were 20 bodies, and several tens more in the quarry. I throw out a number, 150."[46]
Eliahu Arbel's eyewitness account: Eliahu Arbel arrived at the scene 10 April. He was an Operations Officer B of the Haganah's Etzioni Brigade. He reported:-
"I saw the horrors that the fighters had created. I saw bodies of women and children, who were murdered in their houses in cold blood by gunfire, with no signs of battle and not as the result of blowing up the houses. From my experience I know well, that there is no war without killing, and that not only combatants get killed. I have seen a great deal of war, but I never saw a sight like Deir Yassin."[47]
Jacques de Reynier's eyewitness account: Jacques de Reynier was a French-Swiss Representative of the International Red Cross. He came to the village on 11 April. He reported:-
"... a total of more than 200 dead, men, women, and children. About 150 cadavers have not been preserved inside the village in view of the danger represented by the bodies' decomposition. They have been gathered, transported some distance, and placed in a large trough (I have not been able to establish if this is a pit, a grain silo, or a large natural excavation). ... [One body was] a woman who must have been eight months pregnant, hit in the stomach, with powder burns on her dress indicating she'd been shot point-blank.".[48]
Dr. Alfred Engel's eyewitness account: Alfred Engel went to Deir Yassin with Jacques de Reynier, his conclusion is similar to de Reynier's. He reported:-
"In the houses there were dead, in all about a hundred men, women and children. It was terrible. I did not see any signs of defilement, mutilation, or rape. ... It was clear that they (the attackers) had gone from house to house and shot the people at close range. I was a doctor in the German army for 5 years, in World War I, but I had not seen such a horrifying spectacle."[49]
Yeshurun Schiff's eyewitness account: Yeshurun Shiff was an adjutant to David Shaltiel. He was in Deir Yassin 9 April and 12 April. He reported:-
"[The attackers chose] to kill anybody they found alive as though every living thing in the village was the enemy and they could only think 'kill them all.'...It was a lovely spring day, the almond trees were in bloom, the flowers were out and everywhere there was the stench of the dead, the thick smell of blood, and the terrible odor of the corpses burning in the quarry."[50]
Yair Tsaban's eyewitness account: Yair Tsaban was one of several youths in the burial team at Deir Yassin 12 April. He reported:-
"What we saw were [dead] women, young children, and old men. What shocked us was at least two or three cases of old men dressed in women's clothes. I remember entering the living room of a certain house. In the far corner was a small woman with her back towards the door, sitting dead. When we reached the body we saw an old man with a beard. My conclusion was that what happened in the village so terrorized these old men that they knew being old men would not save them. They hoped that if they were seen as old women that would save them."[51]
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