Holy Land: Deir Yassin remembered

Prayer services and commemorative events were held around the world yesterday, to mark the anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre near Jerusalem.

Ranjan Solomon from the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum writes: "Early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun, (led by Menachem Begin who went on to become the 6th Prime Minister of Israel) and the Stern Gang, attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the Jewish State; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah - authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover.

"In all over 100 men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Fifty-three orphaned children were dumped along the wall of the Old City, where they were found by Miss Hind Husseini and brought behind the American Colony Hotel to her home, which was to become the Dar El-Tifl El-Arabi orphanage.

"During the creation of the state of Israel, thousands of Palestinians were killed and over 700,000 were driven or frightened from their homes and lands on which they had lived for centuries."

Some of the survivors from that time, and their descendants, now live in Yarmouk - the refugee camp in Syria under siege by ISIS. The site of the village of Deir Yassin is near Yad Vashem, Jerusalem's Holocaust Museum.

Source: PIEF/ICN