Deir Yassin

Deir Yassin, Palestinian Arab village that was located just west of Jerusalem. On April 9, 1948, on the eve of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948–49, the village was destroyed by Jewish paramilitary forces in an attack that inspired fear and panic throughout the region.

Deir Yassin was situated atop a hill, at an elevation of about 2,600 feet (800 metres). In 1948 it had about 750 inhabitants, who lived in close proximity in some 150 stone-built houses. The vicinity of the village was particularly rich in limestone, a commodity that had made the community prosperous amid Jerusalem’s construction boom after World War I (1914–18). It boasted two mosques, one primary school for boys and another for girls, and several shops.

Because of its elevation, Deir Yassin served as a strategic and consequential point along the road between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean coast. During World War I the Ottomans built trenches outside the village that overlooked the road. The village’s capture by Allied forces on December 8, 1917, greatly aided the troops of British Gen. Edmund Allenby in occupying Jerusalem the following day. A British military administration was subsequently established, and in 1922 the British mandate of Palestine was approved by the League of Nations.

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The location of the village also made it vulnerable as conflict intensified under the British mandate. On November 29, 1947, after decades of tension between Arabs and Jews living in Palestine, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) called for Palestine to be partitioned into an Arab state and a Jewish state (see United Nations Resolution 181). The Jewish community in Palestine considered the resolution to be a legal basis for the establishment of the state of Israel, but the resolution was rejected by the Arab community, which had for decades expected autonomous Arab governance of the whole of Palestine. The resolution was almost immediately met with violence on the ground as both communities attempted to secure possession of the lands that they inhabited.

According to the UN partition plan, the Jerusalem district was to be governed by an international regime. It would be surrounded, however, by an Arab state, leaving Jewish communities in the district without a direct lifeline to the Jewish state. After those communities fell under frequent blockade in 1948, Jewish paramilitaries sought to secure a passageway between Jerusalem and the Jewish communities along the coast (in a campaign known as Operation Nachshon). Deir Yassin overlooked that passage.

On April 9, 1948, at 4:30 am, forces of the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang (also called Lehi) attacked the village. About 100 people were killed, although contemporary accounts reported a higher number. At a press conference convened later in the day, a spokesman for the paramilitary groups claimed that control of the hill was necessary to provide cover for the route between Jerusalem and the coast.

The attack represented a significant escalation in the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. An Arab reprisal in Jerusalem only days later killed about 80 people in a convoy en route to the Rothschild-Hadassah University Hospital. Upon the withdrawal of British troops on the night of May 14, forces from the surrounding Arab countries entered Palestine. In a statement delivered to the UN Security Council on May 15, the Arab League cited the events at Deir Yassin (Arabic: Dayr Yāsīn) among the reasons why Arab forces had entered Palestine:

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The Zionist aggression resulted in the exodus of more than a quarter of a million of its Arab inhabitants from their homes and in their taking refuge in the neighbouring Arab countries. The events which have taken place in Palestine have unmasked the aggressive intentions and the imperialistic designs of the Zionists, including the atrocities committed by them against the peace-loving Arab inhabitants, especially in Dayr Yasin, Tiberias, and others…. After the termination of the British mandate over Palestine the British authorities are no longer responsible for security in the country…. This state of affairs would render Palestine without any governmental machinery capable of restoring order and the rule of law to the country, and of protecting the lives and properties of the inhabitants.

The ensuing Arab-Israeli war of 1948–49 secured Israel’s independence and brought the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under Jordanian and Egyptian control, respectively. The conflict, known to the Palestinians as the Nakbah (or Nakba; “Catastrophe”), displaced at least 600,000–700,000 Palestinians, who were either expelled or fled. Many of those who fled were afraid that their villages would share Deir Yassin’s fate.