Kafr Qasim massacre
The Kafr Qasim massacre happened at the beginning of the Sinai campaign on October 29, 1956 in the village of Kafr Qasim in Israel . Israeli border police murdered 48 Arab Israelis , including 23 children and young people. Another man died of a heart attack caused by the massacre.
These were returnees from work who had unknowingly violated an imposed night curfew in Arab border towns. The commanding officer was aware of this fact, but gave orders to shoot anyone who was on the street after 5 p.m. Arab Israelis were still under military administration at the time and were considered a threat in their own country. The curfew imposed before the campaign for all Arab towns on the then border with Jordan (now the West Bank) began at 3.30 p.m. when many of the affected residents were at work outside the towns. While all other units in the neighboring towns ignored the order to fire and let the workers pass, it was obeyed in several places in Kafr Qasim.
Arab reports often speak of 49 deaths because one unborn child is counted there. The dead were buried in a mass grave, the injured were only recovered the next day due to the curfew. It took months for the act to become public knowledge.
Eight of the perpetrators were sentenced to up to 17 years imprisonment in October 1958, but the sentences were reduced again and again, and ultimately all were released the following year.
In December 2007, then Israeli President Shimon Peres apologized for the massacre. On October 26, 2014, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin became the first President to take part in the memorial ceremony for the victims of the massacre.
literature
- Joseph Croitoru : Operation Mole , Review by Adam Raz: The Kafr Kassem Massacre. A political biography (Hebrew), 2018, in: FAZ, October 27, 2018, p. 16
Web links
- 50 years after massacre, Kafr Qasem wants answers in Haaretz
- German translation of an article by Tom Segev in Haaretz from December 26, 2007, available at www.freunde-palaestinas.de
- Memorial on the 50th Anniversary of the Kafr Qasem Massacre
- Peres apologizes for 1956 massacre in Jerusalem Post, December 22, 2007, accessed October 8, 2012
Individual evidence
- ^ Yoav Stern: 50 years after massacre, Kafr Qasem wants answers. Haaretz , p. 1 , accessed on April 6, 2009 (English).
- ↑ Local struggle, national struggle: Palestinian responses to the Kafr Qasim massacre and its aftermath, 1956–66. In: http://journals.cambridge.org/ . Cambridge University Press , p. 1 , accessed April 6, 2009 .
- ↑ Constanze Krakau: The role of the Palestinian minority in the political life of Israel 1976-1996 . In: Studies on the Contemporary History of the Middle East and North Africa . tape 14 . LIT Verlag, Berlin-Hamburg-Münster 2005, ISBN 978-3-8258-9140-4 , p. 183 ( google.at [accessed on April 6, 2009]).
- ^ President Peres apologizes for Kafr Qasem massacre of 1956 . Haaretz. December 21, 2007. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- ↑ Newsletter of the Embassy of the State of Israel of October 27, 2014