I've just been spending New Year's Eve reading an article on the background behind the Israeli and Palestinian conflict. It's really sad and a reminder of how we need to constantly stay focused on being aware about why these wars happen, and to always ask ourselves what we can do about all the suffering of those far away from us. Below is an extract:
In a joint operation called "Operation Unity," the three Zionist terrorist gangs, the Haganah, the Irgun and the Stern Gang surrounded the village at 4:30 AM, and then went in, raping and killing as they went, looting valuables and destroying property. The slaughter went on for two days. On the second day, a Red Cross volunteer happened onto the scene, and later described what the Zionist terrorists told him was "mopping up." He indicated that the "mopping up was being done with knives, machine guns and grenades." In a previously secret British report, quoted at "Deir Yassin Remembered," (a web site operated by an international group of scholars, half of whom are Jewish or Jewish Israelis), "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 had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts. Women had bracelets torn from their arms and rings from their fingers and parts of some of the women's ears were severed in order to remove earrings."
Reports by some of the survivors:
Mr. Fahimi Zeidan, 12: "The Jews ordered all our family to line up against the wall and they started shooting us. I was hit in the side, but most of us children were saved because we hid behind our parents. The bullets hit my sister Kadri [age four] in the head, my sister Sameh [age eight] in the cheek, my brother Mohammed [age seven] in the chest. But all the others with us against the wall were killed: my father, my mother, my grandfather and grandmother, my uncles and aunts and some of their children."
Ms. Haleem Eid, 30: "A man [shot] a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh who was nine months pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a butcher's knife."
Ms. Naaneh Khalil, 16, saw a man: "take a kind of sword and slash my neighbor Jamil Hish from head to toe then do the same thing on the steps to my house to my cousin Fathi."
Ms. Safiyeh Attiyah, 41: "I screamed but around me other women were being raped too. Some of the men were so anxious to get our earrings they ripped our ears to pull them off faster."
Mr. Mohamed Jaber, student, "The Jews [broke] in, [drove] everybody outside, put them against the wall and shot them. One of the women was carrying a three month old baby."
Mr. Abu Mahmud 70: "They took about 40 prisoners from the village. But after the battle was over, they took them to the quarry where they shot them dead and threw their bodies in the quarry. After they [the terrorists] removed their [the terrorists'] dead and wounded [from the village], they took the prisoners and killed them. They took the elderly prisoners, women and men and took them out of the village, yet they killed the youths."(DYR)
There are reports that both the British commander in the area and the Jewish Agency both knew what was happening, but no one intervened to stop it.
The whole article detailing the background of how it began is available here.
In a joint operation called "Operation Unity," the three Zionist terrorist gangs, the Haganah, the Irgun and the Stern Gang surrounded the village at 4:30 AM, and then went in, raping and killing as they went, looting valuables and destroying property. The slaughter went on for two days. On the second day, a Red Cross volunteer happened onto the scene, and later described what the Zionist terrorists told him was "mopping up." He indicated that the "mopping up was being done with knives, machine guns and grenades." In a previously secret British report, quoted at "Deir Yassin Remembered," (a web site operated by an international group of scholars, half of whom are Jewish or Jewish Israelis), "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 had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts. Women had bracelets torn from their arms and rings from their fingers and parts of some of the women's ears were severed in order to remove earrings."
Reports by some of the survivors:
Mr. Fahimi Zeidan, 12: "The Jews ordered all our family to line up against the wall and they started shooting us. I was hit in the side, but most of us children were saved because we hid behind our parents. The bullets hit my sister Kadri [age four] in the head, my sister Sameh [age eight] in the cheek, my brother Mohammed [age seven] in the chest. But all the others with us against the wall were killed: my father, my mother, my grandfather and grandmother, my uncles and aunts and some of their children."
Ms. Haleem Eid, 30: "A man [shot] a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh who was nine months pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a butcher's knife."
Ms. Naaneh Khalil, 16, saw a man: "take a kind of sword and slash my neighbor Jamil Hish from head to toe then do the same thing on the steps to my house to my cousin Fathi."
Ms. Safiyeh Attiyah, 41: "I screamed but around me other women were being raped too. Some of the men were so anxious to get our earrings they ripped our ears to pull them off faster."
Mr. Mohamed Jaber, student, "The Jews [broke] in, [drove] everybody outside, put them against the wall and shot them. One of the women was carrying a three month old baby."
Mr. Abu Mahmud 70: "They took about 40 prisoners from the village. But after the battle was over, they took them to the quarry where they shot them dead and threw their bodies in the quarry. After they [the terrorists] removed their [the terrorists'] dead and wounded [from the village], they took the prisoners and killed them. They took the elderly prisoners, women and men and took them out of the village, yet they killed the youths."(DYR)
There are reports that both the British commander in the area and the Jewish Agency both knew what was happening, but no one intervened to stop it.
The whole article detailing the background of how it began is available here.
