Kfar Etzion massacre: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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The '''Kfar Etzion massacre''' refers to athe massacre that took place after a two-day battle between Jewish settlers and soldiers of [[Kibbutz]] [[Kfar Etzion]] members and asoldiers, combinedon forceMay of13, the1948, after their surrender to [[Arab Legion]] and Arab villagers, onwho Mayattacked 13,their 1948village, the day before the [[DeclarationKfar of Independence (Israel)|Israeli Declaration of IndependenceEtzion]]. Of the

129 Haganah soldiers and Jewish combatant kibbutzniks[[Kibbutz]] members who died during the defencedefense of the settlement, both [[Martin Gilbert]] and [[Yigal Allon]] state that fifteen were murdered on surrendering.<ref> [[Yigal Allon]],''Shield of David - The Story of Israel's Armed Forces''. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970 p.196.</ref><ref>[[Martin Gilbert]], ''Jerusalem - Illustrated History Atlas,'', V. Mitchell 1994, page 93.</ref>

Only four Jews survived the conflict.<ref name="Benvenisti">[[Meron Benvenisti]],[http://books.google.com.au/books?id=7itq6zYtSJwC&pg=PA116 "Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948'',] University of California Press, 2000 p.116</ref> Controversy surrounds the responsibility and role of the Arab Legion in the killing of those who surrendered. The official Israeli version maintains that the settlers and soldiers were massacred by villagers and the Arab legion as they were surrendering. The Arab Legion version states that it arrived too late to prevent the villagers's onslaught, which was motivated by a desire to revenge the massacre of [[Deir Yassin]], and the destruction of one of their villages several months earlier.<ref>[[Henry Laurens]], ''La Question de Palestine,'' vol.2, Fayard 2007 p.96. Laurens comments:'Le plus probable est que tout se soit passé dans la plus grande confusion' (Most probably, everything took place in a situation of enormous confusion.)</ref> The surrendering fighters are said to have assembled in a courtyard, only to be suddenly fired upon, and that many died on the spot, while most of those who managed to flee were hunted down and killed.<ref name="Benvenisti"/> The four members of Kfar Etzion who survived were taken prisoner and transferred to Transjordan. Immediately following the surrender on May 13, the kibbutz was looted and razed to the ground.<ref name="Benvenisti"/> The bodies were left unburied until, one and a half year later, the Jordanian government allowed [[Shlomo Goren]] to collect the remains, which were then interred at [[Mount Herzl]].The survivors of the Etzion Bloc were housed in abandoned Arab houses in [[Jaffa]].<ref>[[Gershom Gorenberg]], ''Occupied Territories: The Untold Story of Israel's Settlements,''I.B.Tauris, 2007 p.20.</ref>