On April 9, 1948, while
Haganah forces attacked the village of Castel, Irgun and Stern Gang
units massacred the inhabitants of the peaceful village of Deir
Yassin. The Israel Defense Forces’ report admitted the massacre of
254 Palestinian men, women and children and said that it was a “decisive
accelerating factor” of the Palestinian exodus. One Israeli
soldier present at the slaughter described how the Irgun forces “shot
everyone they saw in the houses, including women and children…”
Just before Jewish
terrorists massacred the villagers of Deir Yassin, Abdul Qader
Husseini was slain at Castel. Husseini was the charismatic and brave
leader of the Palestinian resistance. His death was a great loss to
the Palestinians for it deprived them of exceptional leadership just
when they needed it most.
Both the Deir Yassin
massacre and the death of Husseini were the disasters that broke the
spirit of the Palestinian resistance during the first 10 days of
April.
The Irgun Gang assaulted
Deir Yassin from the southeast while the Stern Gang attacked from
the east. The assault began during dawn. It was a Friday. The
village of stonecutters had been at peace with their Jewish
neighbors and did not want fighting to break out in their area. But
when some sentries caught sight of the invading forces they alerted
the sleeping village. Those who were lucky enough to flee did so,
others stayed behind to defend the village. Many, especially women
and children had no time to escape. The British colonists had made
sure that Palestinians were denied access of weapons and many a
time, Palestinians who were caught with guns or even just the
possession of one bullet were imprisoned. This law left the
Palestinians mostly unarmed or poorly equipped, while the Haganah,
Irgun and Stern Gangs were heavily armed and trained in subversive
warfare and terrorist actions.
The village was
bombarded by mortar attacks from 3 different directions. By noon,
all resistance was silenced and the Jewish invaders moved in to
perform their “cleanup operation” which took them from house to
house where they machine gunned homes and then threw in grenades. It
didn’t matter who was in the houses. Men, women and children were
brought out and lined up against a wall and shot. It was not enough
that helpless women and children were savagely killed, but members
of these Gangs ripped open pregnant women’s stomachs with knives.
One lady tried to save the fetus of a female whose stomach was
bayoneted but the Jewish forces shot and killed her in the process.
Some of the men from the
village were rounded up, loaded on trucks and then paraded through
the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem before they were taken to a stone
quarry and shot in cold blood. Some surviving women and children
were forced on trucks and released at the Mandelbaum Gate,
Jerusalem.
A representative of the
International Red Cross later described how he had gone to Dier
Yassin after April 9, to see if there were any survivors. He could
tell that the “cleanup” had been performed with machine guns,
grenades and then finished off with knives. He saw a female member
of the Gangs rush past him, a mad gleam in her eyes. In her hand she
held a long knife still dripping with the blood of those she had
helped murder.
On the morning of April
9, as the innocents were being massacred in Deir Yassin, Abdel Qadar
Husseini, the most revered of all Palestinian fighters was being
buried in Jerusalem at the sacred Haram al-Sharif.
Also in Jerusalem, his
cousin, Hind Husseini, coordinator of the Arab Women’s Union,
mourned over the death of her relative. She also tried to listen to
the news of the war over the radio. She heard a knock on her door
and when she went to open it, she was met by 6 orphaned children
from Deir Yassin. She immediately took them into her home. Some were
covered with blood and others were too frightened to speak. Some of
the children had not been slaughtered along with the adults because
they hid under beds or their parents shielded them with their dead
bodies.
For the next week, Hind worked
with Adnan Tamimi to locate the surviving children of Deir Yassin.
They found 55 in all. Hind put aside all thoughts of marriage and
decided to dedicate her life to her babies. Her family was
sympathetic to her wishes and gave her Dar Husseini, the home her
grandfather built and the place where she was born. On her 32nd
birthday, just 2 weeks after the massacre at Deir Yassin, Hind
renamed the mansion Dar El Tifl (Children’s House).
Hind dedicated her
life to the orphans that she had found or who had found her. She
made caring for the children her full time job and worked diligently
to provide them with an education and help them find homes or jobs
later on. With the help of others, she created a school for girls
that educated more than 1,450 females from preschool to the 12th
grade. Eventually, Dar El-Tifl offered college course, credits and
graduate degrees. Today, 250 orphans live at Dar El-Tifl.
Hind died in
September 1995. Thousands of people have been positively affected by
this saint’s benevolent generosity and her noble dedication. The
orphans of Deir Yassin will never be able to forget the tragedy they
witnessed the day of the massacre. Their scars will last for
generations to come. But Hind was there to give them hope and to
give them love.
Lest we forget
however, every day Israelis commit new Deir Yassins and the
slaughter of the innocents continues.
