Qibya massacre: Encyclopedia II - Qibya massacre - The operation

Qibya massacre - The operation

The raid at Qibya took place on the evening of October 14, 1953. It began with an artillery barrage at the village until Israeli troops reached the outskirts of the village. Landmines were laid out on roads to prevent Jordanian troops from joining the fight. When the village had been cleared of resistance, Israeli soldiers laid explosives around many of the houses and blew them up after calling for residents to evacuate. At dawn the operation was considered complete and the Israeli troops returned home.

Forty-five villagers' houses had been destroyed, as well as the mosque, the school, and the water reservoir. Over 60 people were killed, two thirds of them women and children. The rest of the village population, around 2,700 people, had decided to evacuate after being ordered to do so by Sharon's men. The Israeli government initially claimed that the killing had been carried out by Jewish civilians living near the border, but later admitted that it had been carried out by military forces.

The IDF claims that the plan was to ambush Arab Legion forces in the area, by destroying some houses as a decoy. The original orders issued by the Israeli General Staff were relatively limited in scale, implying "blowing up a number of houses [...] and hitting the inhabitants". However, going down the command ladder, before they reached the units' commanders, the orders changed to demand "maximum killing" (Morris).

Ariel Sharon later wrote in his diary that he had received orders to inflict heavy damage on the inhabitants of Qibya: "The orders were utterly clear: Qibya was to be an example for everyone". Sharon said that he had thought the houses were empty and that the unit had checked all houses before detonating the explosives. In his autobiography Warrior (1987) he wrote:

"I couldn't believe my ears. As I went back over each step of the operation, I began to understand what must have happened. For years Israeli reprisal raids had never succeeded in doing more than blowing up a few outlying buildings, if that. Expecting the same, some Arab families must have stayed in their houses rather than running away. In those big stone houses [...] some could easily have hidden in the cellars and back rooms, keeping quiet when the paratroopers went in to check and yell out a warning. The result was this tragedy that had happened."

Benny Morris expresses doubt in this claim, considering the nature of the orders Unit 101 received. He also points to the fact that U.S., U.N., and Arab Legion reports indicate that villagers were killed before the demolition of the houses began. The U.N. observer who inspected the scene, Major General Vagn Bennike, chief of staff of the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization (which investigated the scene the next day) said: "one story was repeated time after time: the bullet splintered door, the body sprawled across the threshold, indicating that the inhabitants had been forced by heavy fire to stay inside until their homes were blown up over them."

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The operation", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki