'Everyone was killed': Documents shine light on 'annihilation' of Palestinians during 1948 Nakba
Newly uncovered documents dating from the 1948 Nakba that saw the creation of the state of Israel reveal the extent to which Zionist fighters were ordered to "annihilate" civilians and their villages.
Haaretz obtained documents belonging to Rafi Kotzer, a member of the Golani infantry brigade and a founder of the 12th Battalion's commando unit, after they were discovered near bins in Jerusalem.
Among the documents were logbooks, notes and summaries from 1948 referencing orders given by Israeli officials to kill Palestinian civilians, including women and children.
Some of the documents approved by the military censor relate to the trial of Shmuel Lahis, the only Israeli commander ever sentenced for killing Arabs during the 1948 war.
Testimony at the trial included that of Yisrael Carmi, a battalion commander in the 7th Brigade, describing the Zionist conquest of Beersheba in October 1948.
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"I conquered the city. In mopping up that area, I gave an order to annihilate anyone who appeared in the street, whether they resisted or did not resist. An order was given to destroy everything," he said at the trial.
"After the conquest of the police station - after the surrender - the murder stopped. Until then, everyone was killed - women and children and everyone. Then an order was given to the people to go to Hebron. Anyone who didn't go was 'removed'."
Lahis, who was held responsible for the Hula massacre in Lebanon, in which up to 89 people were killed by the Carmeli Brigade of the Israeli army, did not serve a prison term and later became head of the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Another document was written by Yitzhak Broshi, commander of Golani's 12th Battalion, and contains an order from July 1948 that he sent to company commanders titled "Conduct in captured villages where there is a population".
The orders told officers that after a Palestinian village was captured, identification certificates were to be issued to the inhabitants. If a villager transferred their certificate to another person, both were to be shot. If someone did not report on time for military inspection, they were to be shot and their home destroyed.
Broshi added that if an "outside Arab" was found in a village, they were to be shot immediately. As a general rule, he wrote, “every 10th man” in a captured village where outsiders were found was to be shot.
"Every Arab among the Zabahim is to be killed," the order stated, referring to the Arab a-Zabah community of Bedouins in the Lower Galilee.
Another order from Broshi called for a search for Palestinians who might have hidden in the Mount Turan area of the Lower Galilee following its capture.
"Kill anyone who is hiding," the order read.
The new documents provided further proof that Zionist militias carried out an intentional campaign of killing and expulsion in Palestine in 1948 to remove the native population.
More than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled to territories then controlled by Arab armies or neighbouring states. Those who remained after the declaration of the state of Israel were kept under military rule until 1966.
Israel has long maintained that Palestinian refugees left their homes at the order of Arab officials, despite decades of testimony from Palestinians contradicting this.
"Arabs in a small number are wandering about in the [captured] villages," read another Broshi order.
"The area is to be cleansed of Arabs - every Arab who will be met with is to be annihilated."
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