Pars Today

Pars Today- Almost no crime can be mentioned that the occupying Zionist regime has not committed since its coming to existence. Israel, with the support of the Western leaders and news silence of their media, has done the most heinous behaviors and acts of terror for the past decades against the Palestinian people. Deir Yassin massacre is one of these historical catastrophes.

On April 9, 1948, the members of two criminal Zionist grouplets, namely Irgun led by Menachem Begin, the former Premier of the regime, and Stern Lehi led by Yitzhak Shamir, Begin's deputy, martyred over 250 (up to 350) Palestinians in assaulting Deir Yassin village.

Deir Yassin village is located in the Western heights looming over the Occupied Qods. This place dates back to the year 1517 and the Ottoman rule. The population of the village was nearly 610 in 1945. The residents of the village had signed a treaty of non-aggression with Jews in 1942. Moreover, this village was out of the positions which had been determined by the UN for the Zionist regime.

According to the survivors of this crime, the attack on Deir Yassin began at 3 a.m. and after the resistance of the villagers, Zionist terrorists asked for aid forces and logistics from the Hagana command center. Then they attacked the village with heavy weapons and, hence, the men, women and children were plunged in blood and soil. The Zionists exploded every house with bombs and dynamite and took the village in their control. The aggressors shot dead scores of the inhabitants beside a wall. They were not content with this crime and tied some of the villagers behind a truck and paraded them in the streets and neighborhoods of Qods while chanting racist slogans.

According to the report of Hagana officer, Meir Pael, the members of Lehi and Irgun looted the properties of villagers including money, gold, sugar, radio and so on. Reports were also recorded of raping several Palestinian women and girls, tearing up the womb of pregnant women, mutilation, gauging out of eyes and amputation of dead bodies of Palestinians. All these acts were done with the aim of intimidation of Palestinians in other parts of the country in a bid to force them to migrate from their mother land.

Yari Tzaban, member of the Israeli Knesset in four terms, said that after the massacre in Deir Yassin, he had been sent to the village with young bodyguards but he found no body of an armed man. Thus, he rules out the false narrative of Israelis on exchange of fire between the men on the village and Israeli paramilitaries, which has been propagated by Zionists for decades. Finally, Zionists threw the amputated bodies in the well of the village and blocked up the lid to conceal their crimes.                

Following the tragic news of these atrocities in Deir Yassin, the International Red Cross sent a representative to investigate the situation in this village. The Red Cross representative, while touring the ruins, noticed the bodies and mutilated limbs of the Arabs, and also came across a well where the bodies had been buried. On his orders, all the bodies that had been brutally mutilated were exhumed from the well.

The Deir Yassin massacre created a wave of terror and had a major impact on the migration of Palestinians to other parts of Palestine or neighboring Arab countries. In an area of Palestine with a population of 800,000, only about 150,000 remained, with the rest relocating. This attack was so horrific that some prominent Israeli rabbis and well known Jews, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, condemned it. 

However, the British government, which had the mandate over Palestine since the end of World War I, showed little reaction to this massacre and only sent a Jewish individual to investigate the incident.

Albert Einstein's letter of protest to Stern and Yitzhak Shamir after the Deir Yassin incident

Menachem Begin and his accomplices, after perpetrating one of the darkest human tragedies in Deir Yassin, celebrated this massacre late at night in a Jewish settlement less than 5 kilometers from the site of the crime, to recount the details of their atrocities and killings to their spouses and friends. After this crime, Begin rose to the leadership of the Herut (current Likud) party and elevated himself to the position of Prime Minister for three decades.

The documentary "Deir Yassin Village and Massacre" directed by Sahera Dirbas, delves into a recounting of this inhumane tragedy through the voices of some surviving witnesses. In this 75-minute documentary, five Palestinian and two Zionist witnesses provide a detailed narration of Deir Yassin massacre. 

The documentary utilizes a collection of archival images as well as maps and reports from the International Red Cross to present a precise picture of the village before the displacement of its residents and their scattering in Palestinian refugee camps.

RM-MG/UR