Eilabun massacre

The Eilabun massacre was committed by soldiers of Israel Defence Force during Operation Hiram on 30 October 1948. A total of 14 men from the Palestinian Christian village of Eilabun (Eilaboun) were killed, 12 of them executed by the Israeli forces after the village had surrendered. The remaining villagers were expelled to Lebanon, living as refugees for some months before being allowed to return.

The massacre at Eliabun is relatively well documented. It was one of the few Arab villages among hundreds depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, to which most of the displaced were eventually able to return^{[citation needed]}. The village elders, the mukhtar and Maronite priests subsequently gave written testimony of the events. The Massacre was documented by the award-winning documentary film Sons of Eilaboun by Hisham Zreiq, a film based upon the events as told by the villagers.

Overview

After a battle outside the village in which six Israeli soldiers were injured and four Israeli armoured cars were destroyed, a battle that was part of Operation Hiram, the Golani Brigade's 12th Battalion, entered the village on 30 October 1948 and the population surrendered. Villagers flew white flags ^[1] and were escorted by four local priests. Most of the villagers were hiding in two churches. The soldiers were angered by a procession had taken place in the village a month earlier, in which the heads of two decapitated Israeli soldiers, missing after an attack on a nearby hillside, had been displayed.^[2]

The soldiers ordered the people to gather in the village square. One old man was shot while emerging from a church as the other villagers also emerged from their hiding places. The soldiers' commander ordered that the remaining inhabitants, numbering some 800 people, be led to the neighbouring village of Maghar, 5 km north. The commander and two other soldiers, having selected 17 young men executed 12 of them. The remaining five were held and used as human shields to protect armoured vehicles and were later sent to a POW camp. Israeli soldiers looted the village.

When the villagers reached Maghar, they were ordered by the soldiers to continue on to Kafr Inan. As they neared this village another old man, Sam'an ash Shoufani, was killed by fire emanating from an armoured car, bringing the death toll to 14. Three women were also injured. The inhabitants of Kafr Inan and Eilabun were expelled to Farradiyya, a nearby village. The Israeli soldiers gathered the people of Eilabun, Kafr Inan and Farradiyya, and robbed the villagers of some 500 pounds. The women were stripped of their jewellery^[2]. After spending the night in Farradiyya, the next morning the Israeli soldiers separated the women, children and elderly from the men. Some 42 youngsters from these three villages were sent to a detention camp. The women, children and the old of the three villages were then marched to Meirun, where they spent three nights without any food or water. At Meirun, the Israeli soldiers put everyone in two cattle trucks, and took them to Rmaich (in Lebanon). Kafr Inan and Farradiyya were later razed to the ground by the Israeli army.

About fifty-two villagers were left in Eliabun, mainly the elderly and children. The village priests complained bitterly about the expulsion of the villagers and demanded their return. Following a United Nations investigation and pressure from the Vatican, the villagers eventually managed to secure their return within six months of the massacre. Most of the population managed to return from Lebanon, and all the men were released from the POW camps.

The massacre was documented in a report by the United Nations observers^[3].

See also

• Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
• The Sons of Eilaboun
• List of massacres in Israel

References

1. ^ Morris, p. 475.
2. ^ ^{a b} Morris, pp. 479, 499 (note 107). The story of the two decapitated soldiers also appears in narratives of the Arab al-Mawasi massacre, which occurred on November 2, 1948. The two soldiers went missing in the attack on 'Outpost 213' on September 12. Israeli intelligence reports attributed their mutilation to the 'Arab al-Mawasi tribe, and reported that one head was taken to Eilabun and the other to Maghar.
3. ^ Palumbo, p. 164. Citing the United Nations Archives 13/3.3.1, box 11, a document entitled "Atrocities September-November." On p. 165, there is a sketch of the village rendered by Captain Zeuty showing where the victims were killed and where they were buried.

Bibliography

Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Palumbo, Michael. The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion Of A People From Their Homeland, London: Quartet, 1989. Ilan Pappé. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: 1948 to the Present, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007. External links Palestine Remembered - Eliabun The Sons of Eliaboun Sons of Eilaboun Palestinian Diaspora by Gary Olson Leaving Haifa, 1999 The Palestinians' Right of Return by Robin Miller The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined By Dominique Vidal Right of Return story Coordinates: 32°50′18.24″N 35°24′02.74″E / 32.8384°N 35.4007611°E / 32.8384; 35.4007611