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In Pictures: Remembering Deir Yassin

Palestinians were met with Israeli indifference during march to commemorate 66th anniversary of Deir Yassin massacre.

Palestinian Zochrot activist Umar al-Ghubari prepares notes to lead the memorial tour in Deir Yassin, as members of the Orthodox Jewish community now living in the area continue their shopping.
By Rich Wiles
Published On 16 Apr 2014

On April 9, 1948, more than 100 Palestinian residents of the Jerusalem village of Deir Yassin were killed by members of the pre-Israeli-state Irgun and Stern Gang Zionist militias. The massacre proved to be a pivotal moment in Palestinian history and came a few weeks before the foundation of the State of Israel.

At the time of its occupation, Deir Yassin was home to about 700 Palestinians, many of whom worked in the stone quarry alongside the village. The majority of the victims of the massacre were women, children and the elderly. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled, or were forcibly displaced, from their homes during the creation of Israel in 1948.

After being taken prisoner, many villagers were paraded through Jerusalem’s Old City by the militias in order to widely publicise their “victory” in Deir Yassin. In several other Palestinian villages, Nakba survivors reportedly fled after hearing about the massacre in Deir Yassin, fearing similar violence.

Sixty-six years later, this event remains burned into the minds of Palestinians.

The Jewish settlement of Givat Shaul, which was established at the start of the 20th century, neighboured Deir Yassin and the two communities had signed a non-aggression pact that residents wrongly believed would protect Deir Yassin from Zionist attacks. In 1949, Givat Shaul Bet was established as an extension to the earlier settlement on the ruins of Deir Yassin. In the 1980s, the usurpation of the village’s lands continued, as Haf Nof was established.

On April 10, 2014, Zochrot, an Israeli NGO that works to support the full right of return of Palestinian refugees, led a small memorial tour to commemorate the 66th anniversary of the massacre.

As the tour passed through the religious communities that were built over Deir Yassin, many of today’s residents seemed almost blind to the presence of people commemorating a massacre on which their neighbourhoods were built.

Activists carried the names of the more than 100 Palestinians who were killed in Deir Yassin.
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Members of the Israeli security services flanked and filmed the memorial tour, which has been confronted by extreme Zionist groups in the past.
This year(***)s march was met by widespread indifference, which Zochrot activist Eitan Bronstein believes is significant: "This Israeli indifference emphasises the importance of such events... it prevents Israelis from a total erasure of memory."
Young Orthodox Jewish Israelis glance momentarily from a bus, as activists walk by carrying the names of victims of the massacre.
The colonisation of Deir Yassin(***)s lands continues today, with new factory units currently under construction.
As the names of 38 members of the Radwan family, who were killed during the massacre, are read out, two Orthodox Jewish Israelis pause briefly to listen.
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The majority of the massacre victims were women, children or people over the age of 60, despite claims by the Zionist movement at the time that the dead were Palestinian fighters who attacked the militia as they entered the village.
The tour stopped alongside the remnants of Deir Yassin(***)s cemetery, much of which was bulldozed in the 1980s. Two days before the memorial tour, two of the remaining graves were desecrated and (***)Death to Arabs(***) was painted on them.
Orthodox children momentarily leave a basketball game to watch the passing tour. The basketball court on which they now play was built over the stone quarry in which many of Deir Yassin(***)s men used to work.
An elderly man joined the tour and described the role that one of his relatives - Yair Zaban, who later became an Israeli parliament member - played in the massacre. Zaban had been in Deir Yassin the day after the massacre, collecting and removing Palestinian bodies from the scene, and described it as (***)the most difficult thing he had done in his life(***).
The history and the massacre that took place in Deir Yassin are now buried under shopping centres, bus depots, religious Jewish schools, and a psychiatric hospital in the Orthodox neighbourhoods of Givat Shaul Bet and Har Nof.