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Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day on the 15th of May every year.
The Nakba, which in Arabic means “the catastrophe”, refers to the forcible expulsion of 700,000-800,000 Palestinians from their land in the time leading up to and following the creation the state of Israel in 1948. In human terms, this meant the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, and the massacres of civilians.
Contrary to claims that the Palestinians decided to leave, author and journalist Ben White points out, “those who left did not do so of their own volition.” The cleansing of Palestinians from Palestine was part of deliberate strategy on the part of Zionist leaders. According to University of Exeter Professor Ilan Pappe, “Zionist leaders decided that the best means of making the vision of a Jewish Palestine possible was by forcefully dispossessing the Palestinians from their homeland.”
On the eve of April 9th 1948, armed members of Jewish underground groups attacked the village of Deir Yassin, a strategic site towering Jerusalem from the West. After the fall of Al Qastal a few days earlier and the killing of Palestinian guerrilla leader Abdul Qader Al Husseini, Deir Yassin became the most important point on the road to Jerusalem.
Here are 2 eye witness testimonies of the Deir Yassin massacre as told to journalist Elias Zananiri, previously published in 9.4.1997 in “Gulf News”.
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