加西姆村惨案

The Israel Border Police massacred 48 Palestinian civilians, including 19 men, 6 women and 23 children, in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim on 29 October 1956, the eve of the Sinai War. Israeli forces had imposed a curfew on the village in the morning of 29 October, and when a number of villagers who had been away and were unaware of the curfew returned, they were massacred.

From 1949 to 1966, Arab citizens were regarded by Israel as a hostile population. On 29 October 1956, the Israeli army ordered that all Arab villages near the Green Line, at that time, the de facto border between Israel and the Jordanian West Bank, to be placed under a wartime curfew. The border policemen who were involved in the shooting were brought to trial and found guilty and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 7 to 17 years. The brigade commander was sentenced to pay the symbolic fine of 10 prutot (old Israeli cents).

The Israeli court found that the command to kill civilians was "blatantly illegal". However, all of the sentences were later reduced, with some of those convicted receiving presidential pardons. All of those convicted had been released by November 1959. Two of those convicted later received promotions: Shmuel Malinksi was put in charge of the Negev Nuclear Research Center, while Gabriel Dahan was placed in charge of "Arab Affairs" of the city of Ramla.

Issachar (Yissachar) "Yiska" Shadmi—the highest-ranking official prosecuted for the massacre—stated, shortly before his death, that he believed that his trial was staged to protect members of the Israeli political and military elite, including Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, from taking responsibility for the massacre.……

Background

On the first day of the Suez War, Israel's intelligence service expected Jordan to enter the war on Egypt's side. Acting on this intelligence, soldiers were stationed along the Israeli-Jordanian frontier. The town of Kafr Qasim was about 1 km west of the Green Line.

From 1949 to 1966, Arab citizens were regarded by Israel as a hostile population, and major Arab population centers were governed by military administrations divided into several districts.……

Massacre

On October 29, 1956, the Israeli army ordered that all Arab villages near the Jordanian border be placed under a wartime curfew from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. on the following day. Any Arab on the streets was to be shot. The order was given to border police units before most of the Arabs from the villages could be notified. Many of them were at work at the time. That morning, Shadmi, who was in charge of the Triangle, received orders to take all precautionary measures to ensure quiet on the Jordanian border.……

Subsequent events

The military censor imposed a total ban on newspaper reportage on the massacre. Nonetheless, news of the incident leaked out after communist Knesset Members Tawfik Toubi and Meir Vilner managed to enter the village two weeks later and investigate the rumours. However, it took two months of lobbying by them and the press before the government lifted the media blackout imposed by David Ben-Gurion. The government started an internal inquiry on November 1 involving, among others, the Criminal Investigations Division of the military police.……

Trial

Following public protests, eleven Border Police officers and soldiers involved in the massacre were court-martialed for murder.……

Commemoration

As recently as 2021, attempts to have the massacre officially recognized in Israel have failed. A bill presented by the Joint List to achieve that end was overwhelming defeated in a Knesset vote on 26 October 2021, with a 93/12 voting majority. The proposed bill, which was opposed by Kfar Qasim resident and Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Freije, also included provisions to incorporate information on the incident in school syllabuses and for the declassification of all archival documents related to it.……