Deir Yassin massacre

The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when Zionist paramilitaries attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, killing at least 107 Palestinian villagers, including women and children. The attack was conducted primarily by the Irgun and Lehi, who were supported by the Haganah and Palmach. The massacre occurred during the 1947-1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine and was a central component of the Nakba and the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.

On the morning of April 9, Irgun and Lehi forces entered the village from different directions. They massacred villagers, including women and children, using firearms and hand grenades, as they emptied the village of its residents house by house. The inexperienced militias encountered resistance from a few armed villagers and suffered some casualties. The Haganah directly supported the operation, providing ammunition and covering fire, and two Palmach squads entered the village as reinforcement. A number of villagers were taken captive and paraded on the backs of trucks through West Jerusalem, where they were jeered at, spat upon, stoned, and eventually murdered. In addition to the killing and widespread looting, there may have been cases of mutilation and rape.

Despite an original boast by the Jewish militias that 254 Palestinian Arabs had been killed, modern scholarship puts the death toll at around 110, with the number of wounded estimated to be between 12 and 50. Four or five of the attackers were killed and around a dozen wounded.

News of the killings was widely publicized, sparking terror among Palestinians across the country, frightening many to flee their homes in anticipation of further violence against civilians by advancing Jewish forces. The massacre greatly accelerated the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later, beginning the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The Haganah denied its role in the attack and publicly condemned the massacre, blaming it on the Irgun and Lehi, and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which Abdullah rejected, stating that "the Jewish Agency stands at the head of all Jewish affairs in Palestine".

Four days after the Deir Yassin massacre, on April 13, a reprisal attack on the Hadassah medical convoy in Jerusalem ended in a massacre killing 78 Jews, most of whom were medical staff. Material in Israeli military archives documenting the Deir Yassin massacre remains classified.