7 july 2019
Israel’s ministry for military affairs has formed a secret unit tasked with concealing sensitive historical documents, with a special focus on censoring chilling revelations related to the expulsion of Palestine’s original inhabitants, according to a report.
Malmab, also known as the military affairs ministry’s department for “defense establishment security”, has been conducting the operation for two decades, placing historic documents in concealed vaults, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported, according to the PNN.
The now-concealed documents, which contain previously accessible files sometimes even cited by researchers, cover various aspects of Israel’s murky history, including its nuclear weapons program, foreign relations and the expulsion and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Yehiel Horev, who launched and headed the project until 2007, believes concealing the documents, specifically the ones related to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, remembered as “Nakba Day”, is essential in avoiding further upheaval among the region’s Palestinian residents.
Asked by Haaretz about the motive behind hiding previously published documents, Horev explained that the measure was taken to delegitimize studies done about the expulsion of Palestinians, denying researchers credible references to back up their claims.
“The question is whether it can do harm or not. It’s a very sensitive matter. Not everything has been published about the refugee issue, and there are all kinds of narratives. Some say there was no flight at all, only expulsion. Others say there was flight. It’s not black-and-white,” he said.
‘The Jewish Nazis’
Israel has asserted that the mass exodus of Palestinians, which paved the way for the formation of the regime in 1948, happened as a result of Arab politicians who had encouraged the population to leave the territory.
Concealed documents revealed by the report, however, present a different narrative, admitting that as much as 70 percent of displaced Palestinians were driven out of their lands as a direct result of “Jewish military operations.”
One such document from 1948 even describes the specific causes of the exodus from specific Arab localities, making references to the notorious Jewish Irgun and Lehi (also known as the Stern Gang) killing squads.
Ein Zeitun – “our destruction of the village”; Qeitiya – “harassment, threat of action”; Almaniya – “our action, many killed”; Tira – “friendly Jewish advice”; Al’Amarir – “after robbery and murder carried out by the breakaways”; Sumsum – “our ultimatum”; Bir Salim – “attack on the orphanage”; and Zarnuga – “conquest and expulsion.”
The Irgun and Lehi militias were most notorious for their role in the April 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, killing hundreds of villagers in a village populated by no less than 600 residents.
According to the report, among other chilling revelations describing systematic killings, looting and abuse that were later concealed by Israeli authorities, was a document describing the 1948 destruction of the Palestinian Safsaf village in 1948 where an Israeli settlement was later built upon.
“Safsaf [former Palestinian village near Safed] – 52 men were caught, tied them to one another, dug a pit and shot them. 10 were still twitching. Women came, begged for mercy. Found bodies of 6 elderly men. There were 61 bodies. 3 cases of rape, one east of from Safed, girl of 14, 4 men shot and killed. From one they cut off his fingers with a knife to take the ring,” read the document.
One concealed document detailing the Jewish expulsion operations described the raids as being comparable to “Nazi acts”.
The revelations come as Israel has been facing growing international scrutiny over its occupation and abuse of Palestinians in recent years, with the Tel Aviv regime finding itself struggling to assert its legitimacy in world public opinion.
Influential pro-Zionist historian Benny Morris has predicted that Israel may disintegrate in the near future, given that it can no longer subjugate Palestinians using the openly discriminatory practices it was founded upon, given increasingly sensitive global public opinion on the matter.
Malmab, also known as the military affairs ministry’s department for “defense establishment security”, has been conducting the operation for two decades, placing historic documents in concealed vaults, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported, according to the PNN.
The now-concealed documents, which contain previously accessible files sometimes even cited by researchers, cover various aspects of Israel’s murky history, including its nuclear weapons program, foreign relations and the expulsion and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Yehiel Horev, who launched and headed the project until 2007, believes concealing the documents, specifically the ones related to the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, remembered as “Nakba Day”, is essential in avoiding further upheaval among the region’s Palestinian residents.
Asked by Haaretz about the motive behind hiding previously published documents, Horev explained that the measure was taken to delegitimize studies done about the expulsion of Palestinians, denying researchers credible references to back up their claims.
“The question is whether it can do harm or not. It’s a very sensitive matter. Not everything has been published about the refugee issue, and there are all kinds of narratives. Some say there was no flight at all, only expulsion. Others say there was flight. It’s not black-and-white,” he said.
‘The Jewish Nazis’
Israel has asserted that the mass exodus of Palestinians, which paved the way for the formation of the regime in 1948, happened as a result of Arab politicians who had encouraged the population to leave the territory.
Concealed documents revealed by the report, however, present a different narrative, admitting that as much as 70 percent of displaced Palestinians were driven out of their lands as a direct result of “Jewish military operations.”
One such document from 1948 even describes the specific causes of the exodus from specific Arab localities, making references to the notorious Jewish Irgun and Lehi (also known as the Stern Gang) killing squads.
Ein Zeitun – “our destruction of the village”; Qeitiya – “harassment, threat of action”; Almaniya – “our action, many killed”; Tira – “friendly Jewish advice”; Al’Amarir – “after robbery and murder carried out by the breakaways”; Sumsum – “our ultimatum”; Bir Salim – “attack on the orphanage”; and Zarnuga – “conquest and expulsion.”
The Irgun and Lehi militias were most notorious for their role in the April 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, killing hundreds of villagers in a village populated by no less than 600 residents.
According to the report, among other chilling revelations describing systematic killings, looting and abuse that were later concealed by Israeli authorities, was a document describing the 1948 destruction of the Palestinian Safsaf village in 1948 where an Israeli settlement was later built upon.
“Safsaf [former Palestinian village near Safed] – 52 men were caught, tied them to one another, dug a pit and shot them. 10 were still twitching. Women came, begged for mercy. Found bodies of 6 elderly men. There were 61 bodies. 3 cases of rape, one east of from Safed, girl of 14, 4 men shot and killed. From one they cut off his fingers with a knife to take the ring,” read the document.
One concealed document detailing the Jewish expulsion operations described the raids as being comparable to “Nazi acts”.
The revelations come as Israel has been facing growing international scrutiny over its occupation and abuse of Palestinians in recent years, with the Tel Aviv regime finding itself struggling to assert its legitimacy in world public opinion.
Influential pro-Zionist historian Benny Morris has predicted that Israel may disintegrate in the near future, given that it can no longer subjugate Palestinians using the openly discriminatory practices it was founded upon, given increasingly sensitive global public opinion on the matter.
10 apr 2019
On this day, 71 years ago, some 120 members of underground Jewish paramilitary groups invaded the Palestinian Arab village of Deir Yassin, killing between 100 and 250 people including men, women, children and the elderly.
With reports of mutilations, rapes and survivors being paraded through Jewish neighbourhoods before being summarily executed, the massacre remains one of the most brutal in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Seven decades later, Palestinians continue to be killed with apparent impunity, as ongoing events in the Gaza Strip demonstrate.
What: The massacre at Deir Yassin
When: 9 April 1948
Where: The village of Deir Yassin on the outskirts of West Jerusalem
What happened?
The massacre took place against the backdrop of the bitter conflict that preceded the end of the British Mandate in Palestine, Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency reports. Just months before, in November 1947, the UN had proposed the division of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem administrated independently of either side by an international body. The Arabs rejected the UN proposal and the conflict became even more intense.
Deir Yassin was a peaceful village of around 400 people that had signed a non-aggression pact and was excluded from clashes elsewhere. Due to its proximity to West Jerusalem, it came under the UN Partition Plan as part of the independent Jerusalem area.
The Jewish forces that invaded Deir Yassin belonged mainly to two extremist, underground, paramilitary groups, the Irgun (National Military Organisation) and the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, also known as the Stern Gang), both of which were aligned with the right-wing Zionist movement; they have been described as “Jewish terrorist” groups.
The two groups attacked the village in order to clear the road to Jerusalem of its Arab inhabitants, as well as send a message to the other Palestinians in the region. The Palmach, a unit of the Haganah (the forerunner of the Israel Defence Forces) whose leadership was aligned with the political left, also took part in the massacre to a lesser degree.
The attack force consisted of some 120 fighters, who met for a briefing on the morning before the massacre. Those present later described the atmosphere among the militants as festive, as they prepared to massacre Palestinians in their homes. They arrived at the edge of the village at 4:30am, where they took up positions and started firing at residents. Whilst the Jewish groups had expected the Palestinians to flee, the residents did not foresee the attack to be an attempt to kill them or drive them all away; they thought that it was just a raid, and refused to run.
The militias entered the village, shooting at those in the street and throwing hand grenades into houses, destroying buildings and killing the residents who were hiding inside. Eyewitnesses, including fighters from the Haganah, testified to seeing Irgun and Lehi troops pillaging houses and corpses, stealing money and jewellery from the survivors, and burning corpses.
There were also multiple reports of rape and mutilation, as well as an account that villagers were killed after being taken on a victory parade through Jewish neighbourhoods in West Jerusalem.
What happened next?
The Arab emergency committee in Jerusalem learned of the attack at around 9am on the same day. Despite appealing for the British Army to intervene to protect civilians, the British Mandate authorities were not keen to face the Jewish militias; General Sir Gordon MacMillan, the commander of British forces in Palestine, stated infamously that he would risk British lives only for British interests.
Two days after the massacre, Jacques de Reynier, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Palestine, visited Deir Yassin. In his personal memoirs, published in 1950, he recalled seeing the bodies of over 200 dead men, women and children: “[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.”
On 14 April, Assistant Inspector-General Richard Catling of the British Palestine Police, conducted interviews with female survivors of the massacre taking refuge in the nearby Palestinian town of Silwan. In a subsequent report he concluded that there was “no doubt” that the Jewish groups had committed numerous sexual atrocities against the villagers.
“Many young schoolgirls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman who gave her age as one hundred and four who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts.”
News of the indiscriminate killings sparked terror among Palestinians, causing many to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish advances.
With the news of other atrocities in Haifa and Yaffa, public anger in the Arab world rose to new heights over the following month as they demanded that their governments should take action. Consequently, on 15 May 1948, one day after the British Mandate ended and Israel declared its independence, several Arab armies invaded and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war began.
The aftermath After the war ended in 1949, the Jewish neighbourhood of Giyat Shaul Bet was built on what used to be Deir Yassin, despite protests and requests that it be left uninhabited. Today, it is part of Har Nof, an Orthodox Jewish area.
Although the two main groups responsible for the massacre were considered underground, extremist militias, both of their leaders, Menachem Begin of the Irgun and Yitzhak Shamir of the Stern Gang, later became Prime Minister of the state of Israel.
Today, Israel continues to kill Palestinians with apparent impunity; outrage from the international community is generally limited to condemnations on global platforms. As the Palestinians mark 70 years since the Nakba (“Catastrophe”, the creation of Israel in Palestine) next month, the lives and rights of those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to be trampled upon, with millions across the world denied their legitimate right to return to their homes.
The massacre at Deir Yassin is a reminder of the inhumanity and brutality at the heart of the ongoing occupation and refugee crisis.
With reports of mutilations, rapes and survivors being paraded through Jewish neighbourhoods before being summarily executed, the massacre remains one of the most brutal in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Seven decades later, Palestinians continue to be killed with apparent impunity, as ongoing events in the Gaza Strip demonstrate.
What: The massacre at Deir Yassin
When: 9 April 1948
Where: The village of Deir Yassin on the outskirts of West Jerusalem
What happened?
The massacre took place against the backdrop of the bitter conflict that preceded the end of the British Mandate in Palestine, Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency reports. Just months before, in November 1947, the UN had proposed the division of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem administrated independently of either side by an international body. The Arabs rejected the UN proposal and the conflict became even more intense.
Deir Yassin was a peaceful village of around 400 people that had signed a non-aggression pact and was excluded from clashes elsewhere. Due to its proximity to West Jerusalem, it came under the UN Partition Plan as part of the independent Jerusalem area.
The Jewish forces that invaded Deir Yassin belonged mainly to two extremist, underground, paramilitary groups, the Irgun (National Military Organisation) and the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, also known as the Stern Gang), both of which were aligned with the right-wing Zionist movement; they have been described as “Jewish terrorist” groups.
The two groups attacked the village in order to clear the road to Jerusalem of its Arab inhabitants, as well as send a message to the other Palestinians in the region. The Palmach, a unit of the Haganah (the forerunner of the Israel Defence Forces) whose leadership was aligned with the political left, also took part in the massacre to a lesser degree.
The attack force consisted of some 120 fighters, who met for a briefing on the morning before the massacre. Those present later described the atmosphere among the militants as festive, as they prepared to massacre Palestinians in their homes. They arrived at the edge of the village at 4:30am, where they took up positions and started firing at residents. Whilst the Jewish groups had expected the Palestinians to flee, the residents did not foresee the attack to be an attempt to kill them or drive them all away; they thought that it was just a raid, and refused to run.
The militias entered the village, shooting at those in the street and throwing hand grenades into houses, destroying buildings and killing the residents who were hiding inside. Eyewitnesses, including fighters from the Haganah, testified to seeing Irgun and Lehi troops pillaging houses and corpses, stealing money and jewellery from the survivors, and burning corpses.
There were also multiple reports of rape and mutilation, as well as an account that villagers were killed after being taken on a victory parade through Jewish neighbourhoods in West Jerusalem.
What happened next?
The Arab emergency committee in Jerusalem learned of the attack at around 9am on the same day. Despite appealing for the British Army to intervene to protect civilians, the British Mandate authorities were not keen to face the Jewish militias; General Sir Gordon MacMillan, the commander of British forces in Palestine, stated infamously that he would risk British lives only for British interests.
Two days after the massacre, Jacques de Reynier, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Palestine, visited Deir Yassin. In his personal memoirs, published in 1950, he recalled seeing the bodies of over 200 dead men, women and children: “[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.”
On 14 April, Assistant Inspector-General Richard Catling of the British Palestine Police, conducted interviews with female survivors of the massacre taking refuge in the nearby Palestinian town of Silwan. In a subsequent report he concluded that there was “no doubt” that the Jewish groups had committed numerous sexual atrocities against the villagers.
“Many young schoolgirls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman who gave her age as one hundred and four who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts.”
News of the indiscriminate killings sparked terror among Palestinians, causing many to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish advances.
With the news of other atrocities in Haifa and Yaffa, public anger in the Arab world rose to new heights over the following month as they demanded that their governments should take action. Consequently, on 15 May 1948, one day after the British Mandate ended and Israel declared its independence, several Arab armies invaded and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war began.
The aftermath After the war ended in 1949, the Jewish neighbourhood of Giyat Shaul Bet was built on what used to be Deir Yassin, despite protests and requests that it be left uninhabited. Today, it is part of Har Nof, an Orthodox Jewish area.
Although the two main groups responsible for the massacre were considered underground, extremist militias, both of their leaders, Menachem Begin of the Irgun and Yitzhak Shamir of the Stern Gang, later became Prime Minister of the state of Israel.
Today, Israel continues to kill Palestinians with apparent impunity; outrage from the international community is generally limited to condemnations on global platforms. As the Palestinians mark 70 years since the Nakba (“Catastrophe”, the creation of Israel in Palestine) next month, the lives and rights of those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to be trampled upon, with millions across the world denied their legitimate right to return to their homes.
The massacre at Deir Yassin is a reminder of the inhumanity and brutality at the heart of the ongoing occupation and refugee crisis.
6 oct 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to sign an order extending the secrecy of the information stored in the security services’ archives from 70 to 90 years, including the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by Zionist gangs in the Nakba.
This came at the request of security agencies and other bodies to extend the confidentiality of this information to prevent the publication of part of the information during the current year.
The security agencies claim that the extension of confidentiality comes with the aim of “preventing the detection of sources of intelligence information, methods of work used by the devices today, in addition to information originating from foreign sources.”
Netanyahu had signed a similar order in 2010 extending the confidentiality of archives from 50 to 70 years.
According to Haaretz, the legal adviser to the so-called “State Archive”, Naomi Aldubi, distributed to the ministries on Wednesday a draft of instructions that include the materials contained in the Shin Bet and Mossad, in addition to the archives of the Atomic Energy Commission, and nuclear research centers And the Biological Institute.
It will also prevent the deployment of items of the Army Intelligence Division, information related to the collection of intelligence classified as “secret” or higher, and items related to certain units in the army and the Ministry of Security.
As a result, the decision not to disclose these materials will make it difficult for historians, researchers and journalists to impose restrictions on the public at large, including items related to the Deir Yassin massacre in the village of Deir Yassin in 1948.
This came at the request of security agencies and other bodies to extend the confidentiality of this information to prevent the publication of part of the information during the current year.
The security agencies claim that the extension of confidentiality comes with the aim of “preventing the detection of sources of intelligence information, methods of work used by the devices today, in addition to information originating from foreign sources.”
Netanyahu had signed a similar order in 2010 extending the confidentiality of archives from 50 to 70 years.
According to Haaretz, the legal adviser to the so-called “State Archive”, Naomi Aldubi, distributed to the ministries on Wednesday a draft of instructions that include the materials contained in the Shin Bet and Mossad, in addition to the archives of the Atomic Energy Commission, and nuclear research centers And the Biological Institute.
It will also prevent the deployment of items of the Army Intelligence Division, information related to the collection of intelligence classified as “secret” or higher, and items related to certain units in the army and the Ministry of Security.
As a result, the decision not to disclose these materials will make it difficult for historians, researchers and journalists to impose restrictions on the public at large, including items related to the Deir Yassin massacre in the village of Deir Yassin in 1948.
10 apr 2018
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre, which took place on April 9, 1948, in the village of Deir Yassin, at the hands of Zionist gangs of Arjun and Stern. This is an unforgettable anniversary to the Palestinians, especially the millions of refugees scattered throughout the region. The massacre claimed the lives of hundreds of children, elderly and women.
According to the Palestinian Encyclopedia, the Zionist gangs attacked the village of Deir Yassin near the occupied city of Jerusalem at three in the morning. The assailants attacked the village with an armored vehicle leading the offensive.
They were surprised by fire shot at them from the village, which were not taken into their consideration, resulting in the death of four Jews from the gang, and wounding 32 others. The attackers then sought help from the Haganah gang’s command, took their wounded and opened fire indiscriminately at the villagers, killing 350 children, women, men and elders.
Deliberate displacement
According to those who survived the massacre, its timing was well considered by Jewish leaders, and it helped accelerate the displacement of Palestinians due to the negative Arab media coverage at the time, as it took place two weeks after the signing of a peace agreement requested by the heads of Jewish settlements nearby, and approved by the Palestinian villagers, who paid the price of their love for their land from their lives, to be later killed as martyrs.
The massacre is still rooted in the Palestinian memory; refugee Nasser Rajab from Balata refugee camp east of Nablus said: “The anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre is painful and sad, as if it happened today; it does not leave my memory, and it is repeated in various ways; in Gaza the occupation killed dozens during the Great March of Return.”
Terror will not last
“An occupation that is built on massacres will not last.” says Ahmed Mustafa, from the Tulkarem refugee camp to the PIC reporter. “If it had not been for the massacre of Deir Yassin, the occupation would not have taken place. The Israeli occupation will be defeated and vanquished soon, the same as it was removed from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.”
The 70th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre is marked this year with massacres and chaos taking place in the region, and at a time the Israeli occupation is committing massacres at the Gaza border to prevent the mass Great March of Return.
Refugee Hassan Abu Juma from the Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah noted that “The photos of the crime in Deir Yassin can’t be forgotten; Hundreds of women, children, elderly, young, and pregnant women were murdered in cold blood at the hands of Zionist gangs at the time, headed by the terrorist Menachem Begin. Now the world is watching what is happening in Gaza, and the biggest tragedy is that (Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud) Abbas is also punishing Gaza.”
According to the Palestinian Encyclopedia, the Zionist gangs attacked the village of Deir Yassin near the occupied city of Jerusalem at three in the morning. The assailants attacked the village with an armored vehicle leading the offensive.
They were surprised by fire shot at them from the village, which were not taken into their consideration, resulting in the death of four Jews from the gang, and wounding 32 others. The attackers then sought help from the Haganah gang’s command, took their wounded and opened fire indiscriminately at the villagers, killing 350 children, women, men and elders.
Deliberate displacement
According to those who survived the massacre, its timing was well considered by Jewish leaders, and it helped accelerate the displacement of Palestinians due to the negative Arab media coverage at the time, as it took place two weeks after the signing of a peace agreement requested by the heads of Jewish settlements nearby, and approved by the Palestinian villagers, who paid the price of their love for their land from their lives, to be later killed as martyrs.
The massacre is still rooted in the Palestinian memory; refugee Nasser Rajab from Balata refugee camp east of Nablus said: “The anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre is painful and sad, as if it happened today; it does not leave my memory, and it is repeated in various ways; in Gaza the occupation killed dozens during the Great March of Return.”
Terror will not last
“An occupation that is built on massacres will not last.” says Ahmed Mustafa, from the Tulkarem refugee camp to the PIC reporter. “If it had not been for the massacre of Deir Yassin, the occupation would not have taken place. The Israeli occupation will be defeated and vanquished soon, the same as it was removed from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.”
The 70th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre is marked this year with massacres and chaos taking place in the region, and at a time the Israeli occupation is committing massacres at the Gaza border to prevent the mass Great March of Return.
Refugee Hassan Abu Juma from the Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah noted that “The photos of the crime in Deir Yassin can’t be forgotten; Hundreds of women, children, elderly, young, and pregnant women were murdered in cold blood at the hands of Zionist gangs at the time, headed by the terrorist Menachem Begin. Now the world is watching what is happening in Gaza, and the biggest tragedy is that (Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud) Abbas is also punishing Gaza.”
