Hula massacre (Lebanon)
Coordinates: 33 ° 13 ′ 0 ″ N , 35 ° 31 ′ 0 ″ E
The Houla massacre occurred in the period between 30 October and 1 November 1948 in Hula ( Arabic حولا Ḥūlā ), a village in southern Lebanon .
On October 24, 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence, the village was occupied by a unit from Battalion 22 of the IDF “Carmeli” brigade . The unit had previously suffered heavy losses, the commander and his deputy had been killed and their successors had only been in command for a few days. There had been no resistance in the village, the male residents of the village had surrendered and asked to be allowed to stay in their houses.
Between October 30 and November 1, the male villagers from the age of 15 (between 35 and 58 people) locked in a house were shot by officers of the unit and the house with their bodies was then blown up.
The motive for the action was given as revenge for the massacre in the Haifa oil refinery on December 30, 1947, about ten months ago .
As a result, the commanding officer Shmuel Lahis was charged and sentenced on July 17, 1949 to seven years in prison. On April 20, 1950, he received an amnesty from the Military Tribunal and on July 29, 1955, a full amnesty from the then Israeli President Yitzchak Ben Zwi . From 1961 Shmuel Lahis worked for the Jewish Agency , the Israeli immigration organization, of which he became general secretary in 1978.
literature
- No stigma attached. In: Journal of Palestine Studies , Vol. VII, No. 4 (Summer 1978), pp. 143-145.