Khan Yunis massacre
Khan Yunis massacre | |
---|---|
Part of the Suez Crisis | |
Location | Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip |
Date | 3 November 1956 |
Target | Male Arab villagers Suspected members of the Palestinian fedayeen |
Attack type | Massacre[1] |
Deaths | 275+ (Per UNWRA report) |
Perpetrators | Israel Defense Forces |
The Khan Yunis massacre took place on 3 November 1956, perpetrated by the
According to Benny Morris, during an IDF operation to reopen the Egyptian-blockaded Straits of Tiran, Israeli soldiers shot two hundred Palestinians in Khan Yunis and Rafah.[1][2][3] According to Noam Chomsky's The Fateful Triangle, citing Donald Neff, 275 Palestinians were killed in a brutal house-to-house search for fedayeen (while a further 111 were reportedly killed in Rafah).[4][5]
Israeli authorities say that IDF soldiers ran into local militants and a battle erupted.[6][7]
United Nations report
On 15 December 1956, the Special Report of the Director of the
Refugee camp
Conflicting reports of skirmishes between the two peoples were also reported in the neighboring
Aftermath
A curfew imposed on the citizens of Gaza prevented them from retrieving the bodies of their fellow villagers, leaving them strewn about the area overnight. Injured victims of the shootings would later be transported to Gaza City by the
Palestinian sources list the number at 415 killed, and a further 57 who were unaccounted for, or disappeared. According to the future Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, an 8-year-old child in Khan Yunis at the time who witnessed one of the killings, of his uncle,[12] 525 Gazans were killed by the IDF "in cold blood".[13]
Israeli soldier Marek Gefen was serving in Gaza during the Suez Crisis. In 1982, Gefen, having become a journalist, published his observations of walking through the town shortly following the killings. In his account of post-occupation Khan Yunis, he said, "In a few alleyways we found bodies strewn on the ground, covered in blood, their heads shattered. No one had taken care of moving them. It was dreadful. I stopped at a corner and threw up. I couldn't get used to the sight of a human slaughterhouse."[14]
Cultural references
In 2009, Maltese-American comics journalist Joe Sacco published a 418-page account of the killings in Khan Yunis and Rafah, entitled Footnotes in Gaza. The graphic novel relies heavily on mostly directly retrieved eyewitness accounts.[15] Reviewing the work for The New York Times, Alexander Cockburn wrote that, "He stands alone as a reporter-cartoonist because his ability to tell a story through his art is combined with investigative reporting of the highest quality" and stated that "it is difficult to imagine how any other form of journalism could make these events so interesting."[16]
Sacco acknowledges taking sides, writing "I don't believe in objectivity as it's practiced in American journalism. I'm not anti-Israeli ... It's just I very much believe in getting across the Palestinian point of view".[7] Jose Alaniz, Adjunct Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, said that Sacco uses subtle ways to manipulate the reader to make the Palestinian side seem more victimized and the Israelis more menacing.[7]
Story told in Footnotes in Gaza
In 1956,
The day after, French naval forces bombarded Rafah, while the
Men suspected of having borne arms were executed on the spot, in their homes or places of employment, while all males from 15 years to 60 years of age were forced to muster. Two massacres of civilians then took place. The first occurred when citizens were machine-gunned down after being forced to line up against the wall of the Ottoman-era
According to one account from a fleeing fedayeen, Saleh Shiblaq, Israeli forces walked through the town on the morning of 3 November, forcing men out of their homes or shooting them where they were found. In 2003, Shiblaq told Sacco that all the old men, women, and children were removed from his household. Upon their departure, the remaining young men were sprayed with bursts of gunfire by Israeli soldiers.[21] Adult male residents of Jalal Street were allegedly lined up and fired upon from fixed positions with Bren light machine guns, firing extraneously to the point that a stench of cordite filled the air.[22]
See also
- Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict
- Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt
- Kafr Qasim massacre
- Shafrir synagogue shooting attack
- List of massacres in the Palestinian territories
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0198278504.
But many Fedayeen and an estimated 4,000 Egyptian and Palestinian regulars were trapped in the Strip, identified and rounded up by the IDF, GSS, and police. Dozens of these Fedayeen appear to have been summarily executed, without trial. Some were probably killed during two massacres by IDF troops soon after the occupation of the Strip. On 3 November, the day Khan Yunis was conquered, IDF troops shot dead hundreds of Palestinian refugees and local inhabitants in the town. One UN report speaks of 'some 135 local residents' and '140 refugees' killed as IDF troops moved through the town and its refugee camp 'searching for people in possession of arms'.
- ^ Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, Random House 2011 p. 295: "In all Israeli troops killed about five hundred Palestinian civilians during and after the conquest of the Strip. About two hundred of these were killed in the course of massacres in Khan Yunis (on 3 November) and in Rafa (on 12 November)."
- ^ Yezid Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 65: "Dozens of fid'iyyun were summarily executed, and 275 Palestinian civilians were killed as Israeli troops swept Khan Yunis for fugitives and weapons on 3 November."
- ^ Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle (1983), Pluto Press, 1999, p. 102.
- New York Review of Books, 16 August 1984.
- ^ גרינפטר, יעל. "הטבח בחאן יונס". הארץ – via Haaretz.
- ^ a b c "Graphic novel on IDF 'massacres' in Gaza set to hit bookstores". Haaretz.
- ^ a b c "A/3212/Add.1 of 15 December 1956". 15 December 1956. United Nations. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
- ^ "Who is Abdullah Al Hourani?". WebGaza.net. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-9277-6.
- ^ Palumbo, Michael (1990). Imperial Israel. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 32.
- Nation Books, 2013 p. 88.
- ^ a b c d e f g Jean-Pierre Filiu, Gaza: A History, Oxford University Press, 2014 pp.95-100.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-9277-6.
- ^ "Graphic novel on IDF 'massacres' in Gaza set to hit bookstores". 21 December 2009. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
- New York Times. 24 December 2009. Retrieved 24 January 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-9277-6.
- ^ Yezid Sayigh,Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement,1949-1993, Oxford University Press, 1997 p. 65.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-9277-6.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-9277-6.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-9277-6.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-9277-6.
External links
- Amira Hass (11 February 2010). "A thin black line". Haaretz.