Deir Yassin massacre: Encyclopedia II - Deir Yassin massacre - The battle

Deir Yassin massacre - The battle

The attack force consisted of about 132 men, 72 from Irgun and 60 from Lehi as well as a few women to serve as support.

From Givat Shaul a Lehi unit approached Deir Yassin, accompanied with Meir Pa'il and a photographer "to watch their military performance".

One Irgun unit moved towards Deir Yassin from the east, while a second approached it from the south. At 4:45 a.m. the fighting started when concealed Irgunists encountered a village guard.

The road south-westward towards Ein Kerem filled with panicked villagers fleeing.

Villager fire inflicted heavy casualties and drove off the Irgun. The Lehi units advance stopped at the town's center where they were only holding the eastern parts. The attacker's fighting capability matched their progress, weapons failed to work, a few tossed hand-grenades without pulling the plug, and a Lehi unit commander, Amos Keynan, was wounded by his own men.

While both Irgun and Lehi commanders had anticipated many residents would flee, and the remaining would surrender after token resistance, both groups of Jewish fighters, entering the town from different sides, immediately encountered fierce volleys of Arab rifle fire.

Irgun deputy commander Michael Harif, one of the first to enter Deir Yassin, later recalled how, early in the battle, "I saw a man in khaki run ahead. I thought he was one of us, I ran after him and told him, 'Move ahead to that house!' Suddenly he turned, pointed his weapon at me and fired. He was an Iraqi soldier. I was wounded in the leg".

Patchiah Zalivensky of Lehi recalled that among the Arab soldiers killed by his unit was a Yugoslavian Muslim officer.

The villagers sniper fire from higher positions in the west contained effectively the attack, especially from the mukhtar's (= mayor's) house. Some Lehi units went for help from the Haganah's Camp Schneller in Jerusalem. (Information from "Out of Crisis Comes Decision", p.262-265, Milstein)

Intense Arab firepower caused the fighters' advance into Deir Yassin to be very slow. Reuven Greenberg reported later that "the Arabs fought like lions and excelled at accurate sniping". He added that "[Arab] women ran from the houses under fire, collected the weapons which had fallen from the hands of Arab fighters who had been wounded, and brought them back into the houses".

In certain cases, after storming a house, dead Arab women were found with guns in their hands, a sign they had taken part in the battle.

Ezra Yachin recalled, "To take a house, you had either to throw a grenade or shoot your way into it. If you were foolish enough to open doors, you got shot down -- sometimes by men dressed up as women, shooting out at you in a second of surprise".

Briefings before the battle had stated that most of the houses in Deir Yassin had wooden doors, so, while trying to storm them, the fighters were surprised to discover the doors were made of iron, leaving no recourse but to blow them open with powerful explosives, in the process inadvertently killing or wounding some inhabitants. The Lehi forces slowly advanced house by house.

Meanwhile, the Irgun soldiers on the other side of the village, were having a very difficult time. By 7:00 a.m., discouraged by the Arab resistance and their own increasing casualties, Irgun commanders relayed a message to the Lehi camp that they were seriously considering retreating from the town.

Lehi commanders relayed back that they had already entered the village and expected victory soon.

The large number of wounded was a big problem for the guerillas: they had to be evacuated but if they did they could be fired upon. Meret called the Magen David Adom station for an ambulance that came to the battle area. The attackers took beds out of the houses, laid the wounded on them and ordered the inhabitants of the village, including women and old people, to carry the beds to the ambulance and to screen them. They believed the Arabs would not shoot their own people, which however they did.

The Irgun quickly arranged to receive a supply of explosives from their base in Givat Shaul, and started blasting their way into house after house. In certain instances, the force of the explosions collapsed whole parts of houses, burying Arab soldiers as well as civilians who were still inside.

In numerous instances Arabs emerged from the houses and surrendered; over 100 were taken prisoner by day's end. At least two Haganah members on the scene reported the Lehi repeatedly using a loudspeaker to implore the residents to surrender.

In certain cases Arabs pretending to surrender revealed hidden weapons and shot at their would-be Jewish captors.

Benny Morris, a harsh critic of the Irgun and Lehi, has characterized Gorodenchik's testimony as confused.

At about 10:00 am a sizeable Palmach unit from the Haganah arrived. They brought an armored vehicle and a two-inch mortar.

The mortar was fired three times at the mukhtar's house which silenced its snipers. The Palmach unit managed to clear the village of serious resistance and Lehi officer David Gottlieb saw the Palmach accomplish "in one hour what we could not accomplish in several hours."

Deir Yassin massacre - The loudspeaker truck

Before the battle the Irgun had prepared a truck with a loudspeaker to warn the villagers of the attack and attempt to force them from their homes. However, there is near-total agreement that the truck never even entered the settlement. The truck left Givat Shaul a few minutes before 5:00 AM as planned, and by then the battle had already started. According to Irgun leader Menachem Begin the truck was driven to the entrance of the area and broadcasted a warning to the civilians. Other sources say that the truck never reached the village, and still others claim that the truck came to a relatively small distance from the village. Other sources claim that the truck rolled into a ditch caused by Palestinian gunfire before it could broadcast its warning. According to Ezra Yachin, "After we filled in the ditch we continued travelling. We passed two barricades and stopped in front of the third, 30 meters away from the village. One of us called out on the loudspeaker in Arabic, telling the inhabitants to put down their weapons and flee. I don't know if they heard, and I know these appeals had no effect. We alighted from the armored car and joined the attack". Whether or not the truck's message was heard by the villagers is unclear. While hundreds of Deir Yassin residents did flee, it is unclear if it was because of the announcements, the sound of gunfire, or warnings from fellow-villagers who were near the battle sites. (Sources: "The Revolt", 1977, Begin; Levi, Yitzhak, "Nine Measures", p 342; "Terror out of Zion", 1977, Bowyer Bell; Uri Milstein, op. cit. p. 262.)

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