MEMORIAL on the 50th Anniversary of the Kafr Qasem Massacre

Mayor Sarsour informs the Israeli officer that there are 400 residents of Kafr Qasem at various distances from the village and some as far as Petah Tikva, Lidd, and Yafa. The Israeli officer said that he and his men would take care of those outside and the mayor should take care of those in the village. Of course, Mayor Sarsour had no idea what was meant but had ample reason for disquiet.

Two members of the Communist Party who were both also members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), Tawfiq Touby and Mayer Velner, were first to break the news blanket created by Israeli officialdom. More on this below, but first, a general description of the massacre excerpted from Emile Habibi's reporting in the Communist Party's paper, Al Ittihad. Habibi, an internationally recognized writer was a comrade of Touby and Velner.

Scenes of Terror – The Nine Waves*

Translated from the Arabic by Samia A. Halaby

The Massacre occurred in the village of Kafr Qasem. The number of dead reached 49 Palestinian civilians in addition to a large number of wounded and permanently handicapped.

At the western entrance of the village 43 died. Sergeant Shalom Aufer and his unit controlled that area. They were later joined by a second unit under Sergeant Gabriel Oleyeel. Lieutenant Gabriel Dihan kept returning to check on this position throughout the massacre.

Abdelhadi Isa, Abed Muhammad Abdelhadi isa, Abdallah Ahmad Hamad isa

In the northern section of the village three were martyred, shot by the unit under sergeant Ben Fordo. The strange thing in the affair is that the military court which tried and Malenky and Dihan and their soldiers, dropped the matter of these three victims and limited itself to dealing with the killings which occurred on the western entrance to the village.

These three martyrs were two shepherds Abdallah Ahmad Himad Isaa, 15 years of age, his cousin Abed Muhammad Abalhadi Isaa, 9 years of age, and their relative Ibrahim Abdelhadi Isaa, 35 years of age, who had rushed to help them. There were four of them returning home with their flock; one survided.

At dusk, they heard a voice calling them, the voice of Sami's brother Mahmoud Mustafa -- “Oh! Sami, hey! Abdallah and Abed, come!” So they began to return before they finished watering the flock. Ibrahime was walking at the head of the flock, behind him were Abdallah and Abed. Sami was walking behind the flock.

When they neared the olive orchards which was surrounded by cactus fencing, Sami rushed back to retrieve a straggling goat. At that moment he heard shots. When he turned he saw Ibrahime jumping in the air dropping his kufiye and igale behind him. Sami could not comprehend what had taken place.

Then Sami heard more gun shots. He saw Abdallah and Abed fall to the ground. He threw himself down to the ground. The goats provided protection. Then he saw soldiers moving westwards and shooting. He pretended to die. In time the goats began to scatter till he was left alone. He lost feeling in both his legs. Then he heard more shooting, and Abdallah screamed “Pain, my father, I am dying.” Then Sami heard one more shot followed by silence after which he heard the voice of Abed repeated three times “I bear witness that there is no God but God” followed by frightening silence. Suddenly a big dog was breathing in his face and he heard a soldier calling the dog. Thus the dog returned to the soldier. Suddenly the headlights of a vehicle illuminated the place while the soldiers threw the bodies into the car and left. Sami then went to the nearest house in the village.

Abdallah Sliman Isaa, Noora Shaker Isaa, Samia Shaker Isaa, Talal Shaker Abdallah Isaa & Shaker Abdallah Isaa

Inside the village itself, two victims died. They were Talal Shaker Abdallah Isaa and his grandfather Abdallah Sliman Isaa (90 years old).

Talal Shaker Isaa, a child of eight, went out to bring back the family’s herd of goats. He was shot dead by the Israeli soldiers at a spot very near his home.

When his father, Shaker Abdallah Isaa, heard the shots he ran outside searching for his son, the Israeli soldiers shot and wounded him.

At this point, his wife Samia and mother of Talal, left the house headlong to her child and husband. The soldiers then shot and wounded her.

Her daughter, Talal’s sister, Noora Shaker Isaa who was then 20 years of age, also dashed out to save her parents and brother but was shot and wounded.

The one member of the family who remained in the house was the grandfather, Abdallah Sliman Isaa, who was 90. When he realized all that happened to his son and family he had a heart attack and died the next day.

The military court that tried Malenky and Dihan, and their soldiers, also disregarded this crime. It limited itself to dealing with those who executed the massacre at the western entrance to the village.

In Kafer Bara, Jaljoulia, At-Tireh, Al-Taybe, Qalensoua, and Bir Al-Sikka (the rest of the villages where the same curfew was put in effect by Maliky and his unit) there was but one death. It was the child Mahmoud Aqel Jaber who was 12 years old. In all of them one death occured in the village of Al-Taybe. The warning to this village that a curfew was in effect occurred no more than 15 minutes in advance of the appointed time. One of the residents, a father who lived in the northern section of the village had no idea of the curfew and he sent his son, Mahmoud, out to buy cigarettes; the child did not return.

At six pm in the evening, his mother went looking for him. It was by then very dark. She stumbled on a body not recognizing it. She knocked on a nearby door and informed them of the body. They told her that the Israeli border guards had shot him. She returned to inspect and discovered that it was her son. She fell to beating her face and calling to the soldiers to also kill her. But the soldiers left and she remained there beating her face.

The total number of martyrs that bloody night came to 49.

The majority massacre occurred at the western entrance to the village of Kafr Qasem where 43 men, women, and children died.

THE NINE WAVES

The massacre at Kafr Qasem occurred in waves as the unfortunate workers returned from their work in the fields at different times. There were nine waves.

Male and female workers, some very young, as well as children sent by their mothers to warn their families in the fields of the curfew so that they would return quickly to the village.

Ali Tah, Ahmad Fareej

The first wave consisted of four stone quarry workers returning home on bicycles from work in Pata Tikva. They reached the position of the soldiers at five minutes till five, thus before the curfew began.

When they neared the place controlled by sergeant Shalom Aufer and his unit, they dismounted, and walking on foot leading their bicycles, greeted the soldiers saying: “Shalom katseen!” Shalom Aufer asked them if they were happy, and in one voice, they said yes. The men of the border police approached them and ordered them to stand in one line.

The order was yelled by sergeant Shalom Awfer: “Harvest them!” Shots rained on them, and they fell. Then the sergeant yelled, “Enough! They are all dead and it is a shame to waste bullets on them.”

The soldiers then distanced themselves from the scene of the crime so that the next wave or returning workers would not see and be warned..

Two were martyred in this first wave, Amad Muhammad Freij (35 years old) who left behind a wife and four boys, and Uthman Tah (30 years old) who left a wife and eight children.

One of the other two men of the first wave, Mahmoud Ahmad Freij (brother of the martyr Ahmad) was hit in his knee and arm and hid under a bicycle until the end of the massacre. The second, Abdallah Samir Budeir pretended to be dead and later hid among some goats until he could escape safely. The two of them witnessed the massacre from its beginning to its end.

So the next wave of victims would not see what awaited them, the soldiers then backed up some distance toward the village. There they waited for the next group of returning workers.

Ismail Budeir, Budeir's daughter, Ghazi Darweesh Isaa, Abu Samaha, Muhammad Isaa

The second wave followed consisting of a cart pulled by a mule. Riding the cart were Ismail Muhammad Budeir and his daughter who was then 8 year of age. Two men and a boy walked beside the cart returning home carrying vegetables. They were the martyr Muhammad Abdallah Alrahman Asi also known as ‘Abu Samaha’ who was 50 years of age. He was from Kafr Bara but was living in Kafr Qasem. The other man was the victim Ghazi Mahmoud arweesh, 20 years old, and the child Muhammad Abdalraheem Isaa.

At the same time lieutenant Dihan arrived with his men in a jeep. He ordered his soldiers to descend from the vehicle. They got out with their weapons. Dihan approached the cart and ordered Ismail Mahmoud Badeir to descend with his little daughter.

Ismail had seen the bodies that had fallen in the first wave. Thus he approached Dihan yelling: “I beg you, why do you wish to kill us?” His daughter began to cry. Dihan screamed at him to be quiet. Then Dihan asked the boy who had been walking next to the cart, Muhammad Abdalraheem Isaa to climb the cart and drive it to the village taking with him the little daughter of Ismail.

Then Dihan gave the order to his soldiers to fire. They fired. Two were killed. They were Muhammad Abdalraheem Asi know as ‘Abu Samaha’ and Ghazi Mahmoud Darweesh. Ismail was wounded and pretended to die. Dihan thought that Ismail was also killed, and informed his superiors saying, “Three Arabs less.”

Uthman Isaa and his son Fathi Isaa

Then came the third wave consisting of a shepherd and his child with their flock. He was Uthman Abdallah Isaa, 30 years old, and his son Fathi who was 12 years old. When they reached a branch in the road they threw stones at the herd to direct it to the village. The soldiers fired at them immediately later declaring that the stones were aimed at them and that they had to shoot in response to the hostility. Thus their response was to kill both. In the military court the Israeli killers took the defense that they were only responding to hostility.

The fourth wave resulted in with man being killed. There is a bit of conflict regarding a small portion of the event. A truck came carrying 23 Kafr Qasem workers returning from work. They heard the shooting as they neared the position of the border guards and thus stopped their vehicle. Dihan, in court, claimed that he ordered the driver to move in front of him as he drove in his jeep toward the village without causing it any harm. But the village residents say that the driver, only because when he saw the bodies on the ground and sped refusing to stop for anything, did they survive.

During this same event (the fourth wave) a resident of Kafr Qasem reached the location. It was the victim Saleh Mahmoud Naser Amer. He was was returning to the village by foot. He tried to get on the truck as it passed him but the soldiers shot him dead.

The fifth wave also consisted of a truck in which were the driver and five passengers. When the driver of this truck saw what was hapenning he speeded up not stopping or turning for anything. The Israeli soldiers shot at them but the driver did not stop till they reached inside the village. There they discovered that one of the passengers was hit and killed. He was Mahmoud Abdalghahafer Rayan, 35 years old, and was from the village of Kafr Bara.

Men and boys are stopped as they arrive on foot, by cart, or bicles

In the sixth wave six victims were killed. They came riding a cart or bicycles. All together there were 13 workers all returning from hard labor.

The cart arrived first with its two passengers. A soldier stopped it, asked them to descend and to stand next to it. Then the rest of the workers began to arrive to the spot on their bicycles. They had lit their bicycle headlight. The soldiers stopped them next to the car until they numbered 13 workers.

And when the bicycles with headlights stopped coming, a soldier asked them where they were from. They responded that they were from Kafr Qasem. Then the soldier backed up and screamed at the soldiers who were lying face down on the road's side “Harvest them!” (quoted from the records of the military court No. 112). Thus they fired on them and all fell, splattered in their own blood. Six were killed and the rest were wounded or pretended to be dead, while some hopped behind the cactus fence and in this way escaped.

The six victims killed in this sixth wave were: Mahmoud Abdalrazek Sarsour, 16 years old; and Ali Nimer Muhammad Freij, 17 years old; and Saleh Mahmoud Ahmad Amer, 40 years old, leaving behind a wife and three children; and Salime Ahmad Badeir, 50 years old, leaving behind a wife and a son. [two names are missing in the original text. They are Abdallah Abdalghaber Budeir and Abed Salim Saleh Isaa.]

At this moment lieutenant Dihan informed his superior saying, “Fifteen Arabs less!”

A witness, Ismail Ikab Badeer, said that he was wounded in his right leg and expected to die. He crawled a distance from the road after the soldiers left and he hid in a tree for two days. When he saw a shephers he requested help. He was carried to the hospital and he lost use of his right leg. (Court Document No. 112).

Riyad hamdan and his father, Abdal Raheem Tah, Jamal Tah, and Abu Ayyoub

Then came the seventh wave. Ten people were killed, among them two children. Details of this bloody wave were told by the witness Raja Hamdan Dahoud. Raja was a working foreman in the fields of the Asafya Vegetable Company. At five pm of that blood soaked evening his eight year old son, Saleh, came with his friend, the neighbor's son, Jamal Salime Muhammad Tah who was 11 years old. The children said that they were sent by Saleh’s mother to tell him to return immediately to the village because of the strict curfew.

Thus Raja requested the company owners to permit the workers from Kafr Qasem to return immediately home and they acquiesced. Raja flagged a vehicle, owned and driven by the to-be-martyred Atta Yacoub Abed Sarsour of Kafr Qasem, which was then on its way to Kafr Qasem. It was carrying workers returning home from the quarries and fields of Petah Tikva. Raja, his fellow workers, and the two children joined the group in the truck

Shortly after the end of the sixth wave, Atta Yacoub Abed Sarsour’s truck reached the place of the massacre. The truck was now carrying 18 workers all together plus a child from Kafr Qasem and the driver Atta. The headlights of the truck were turned on.

Ten to fifteeen meters from the previous massacre one of the soldiers stopped the truck and ordered its passengers to descend and to form one line at the northern edge of the road and in front of the truck.

Raja did not want to allow his son Riyad to descend the truck. But the child called to his father asking to be taken down and so the father brought him down.

Since Raja was the foreman, he faced the soldier, his Israeli issued identity card in his hand, wanting to talk to them to know why they had been stopped the truck. At that very instant the soldier gave the orders: “Harvest them!” Bullets rained on the aghast workers and they fell, splattered with their own blood.

Raja jumped over the cactus fence in that instant causing the soldiers to direct their shooting at him; but he managed to escape. It is possible that this allowed nine of the passengers of the truck to escape with wounds, some of whom were permanently handicaped. The rest died, among them the two children, Raja’s son, and his friend Jamal Salime Muhammad Tah.

During these same events of the seventh wave, three of the workers hid under the truck but one of the soldiers found them and shot at them till all three were killed.

Another witness, Abdalraheem Salime Tah who was wounded but escaped, and gave the same description. Tah gave witness at the military court trial (court document No. 114-115) saying that the soldiers kept firing at the wounded until they made sure that they died.

This witness, Abdalraheem Salime Tah, was the brother of the martyred child Jamal Saleem Tah who had come with Riyad to inform Riyad’s father, Raja, of the impending curfew.

Abdalraheem relayed that he was holding his brother Jamal’s hand when they were lined up with all the other workers. Then when they were fired upon, he and his brother both fell to the ground but remained un-injured. Jamal was terrified and called to his brother: “AbdelRaheem, I am alive! What has happened to you?” The soldiers heard him and shot the child dead and wounded Abdalraheem.

The victims of the seventh wave were:
1 Atta Yacoub Abed Sarsour, the driver who was 26 years old
2 Riyad Raja Hamdan, 8 years old
3 Jamal Salime Muhammad Tah, 11 years old
4 Jumma Muhammad Abed Sarsour, 17 years old
5 Mousa Thiyab Abed Hamed Freij, 18 years old
6 Abed Salim Muhammad Freij, 14 years old
7 Saleh Mustafa Ahmad Isaa, 17 years old
8 Abdalraheem Muhammad Ahmad Badeir, 25 years old
9 Ahmad Muhammad Jouda Amer, 17 years old
10 Jumma Tawfik Ahmad Jibreen, 16 years old

It will happen later in the ninth and last wave, that Jumma Sarsour's mother, whose name is Safa Sarsour, will see the body of her son Jumma thrown on the side of the road. She will then throw herself on it. With her would be her younger son, Abdallah Sarsour. The Israeli soldiers seeing them would shoot both of them. Safa will die over the body of Jumma and Abdallah will die in her lap.

Then came the eighth wave, consisting of a truck loaded with cement blocks driven by Mahmoud Khader Jaber Sarsour who was 27 years old. With him was the worker Yousef Muhammad Ismail Sarsour who was 52 years of age.

The truck was stopped by sergeant Shalom Awfer who forced both men to descend. He asked them the infamous question of if they were from Kafr Qasem. They answered him that yes they were. As soon as he was sure of their identity, he ordered his soldiers to shoot, and both men were thus shot dead.

It is noteworthy that the killers first ascertained their victims origin before they opened fire and killed them.

Muhmoud Masarwa, Safa Sarsour, Latife Isaa and Bakriya Tah, Hilwa Budeir, Fatme Isaa with Amne Tah and Rshika Budeir and Fatme Budeir, Hana Amer and Fatme D. Sarsour and Fatme S. Sarsour, Khamise Amer and Zeinab Tah and Zaghlule Isaa and Latife Isaa, Muhammad D. Sarsour, Muhammad I. Sarsour and Abdallah Sarsour

The ninth wave of the massacre at Kafr Qasem was the last and most terrifying. Only one of its 18 victims survived, Hana Sliman Amer who was then 16 years of age. Most of the victims were women, fourteen of them. Among them was an elder of 65 and one woman was in the ninth month of her pregnancy. Among them were also three small girls between the ages of 12 and 14 years.

This last wave of the massacre was described in the document of military court (court document 117-118) as follows: That directly after the end of the eighth wave there arrived a truck driven by Mahmoud Muhammad Masarwa, a young man from Al Taybe. The truck carried two men and two boys, and 14 women and girls. They were returning from their work harvesting olives in orchards of Al-Lidd.

Rounding a curve in the road, the driver and passengers saw, to their fright, the piled bodies at the side of the road. The truck did not stop. A soldier hurried towards them signaling his soldiers to follow him. He succeeeded in stopping the truck and ordered the passengers to descend.

The driver, Mahmoud Muhammad Masawara descended from his seat and went to the back of the truck and placed a wooden ladder and asked the women to descend saying, “Descend sisters and each one of you should have her Israeli identity card visible.”

The women descended showing their Israeli identity cards and when they saw all the bodies on the road they pleaded with the soldiers not to kill them. But the soldiers began to fire and they kept firing until they killed them all with the exception of the young woman Hana Sliman Amer who was wounded and appeared dead.

A survivor of one of the previous waves bore witness in court that the captain of the soldiers ordered his men to shoot the wounded in the head. The witness was certain that the soldiers obeyed the order because a moaning voice would stop after each firing into their head.

The dead in the ninth wave were:
1. Mahmoud Muhammad Masarwa, 25 years old, who was the driver from the village of Al-Taybeh.
2. Muhammad alim Khader Sarsour, 15 years old.
3. Muhammad Thiab Sarsour, 35 years old leaving behind a wife and six children
4. Abdallah Muhammad Abed Sarsour, 14 years old, who was with his mother Safa Muhammad Usus Sarsour who also died in this wave after she had seen the body of her other son, Jumma Muhammad Abed Sarsour, who had been killed in the seventh wave.
5. Safa Muhammad Usus Sarsour, 45 years old. She is the one whose two sons were killed in the massacre as mentioned above.
6. Fatme Saleh Ahmad Sarsour, 14 years old.
7. Aminah Qasem Saee Tah, 50 years old
8. Khamisah Fafaj Muhammad Amer, 50 years old.
9. Zaghlouleh Ahmad Basheer Isaa, 45 years old
10. Hilwe Muhammad Odeh Budeir, 65 years old
11. Fatmeh Dahoud Hamad Sarsour, 30 years old, and pregnant in the ninth month of her term. She had gone to work because her husband was sick.
12. Rashika Faek Ibrahim Budeir, 14 years old.
13. Zeinab Abdallah Ahmad Tah, 45 years old.
14. Fatme Mahmoud Sliman Budeir, 40 years old.
15. Fatme Mustafa Muhammad Isaa, 18 years old.
16. Latife Dahoud Muhammad Isaa, 12 years old.
17. Bakriya Muhammad Ismail Tah, 14 years old.

Several witnesses who survived earlier waves related that the fourteen young women began to stick one to the other while bullets rained on them. The group began to rotate slowly as they were all holding onto each other. The circle turned a dance of death challenging any great artist to reveal it.

Two little girls who had run outside the circle of death both returned to the circle finding that even in death, the kindest place is their mother’s lap.

Hana, the sixteen year old girl, and sole survivor, related that she found herself in the central location of this circle of death. She said that the circle was turning around her and as she turned with it she heard a succession of shots and moans and the sounds of bodies then more shots, moans and bodies falling to the ground until she was left alone. At that moment she passed out.

The "harvest" of the massacre (during two hours) was 49 dead. One of them died in the village of Al Taybeh while all the rest died in Kafr Qasem most of whom, with a few exceptions, were from kafr Qasem.

Of the dead 36 were male: 11 children between 12 and 16 years of age.

Of the dead 13 were female four of which were children between 8 and 16 years of age.

Of the 49 dead, 34 were adults ranging in age between 17 and 90 years, and 15 were children ranging in age between 8 and 16 years.

Tens were wounded and many were handicapped.

Of the 49 dead, 43 died at the western entrance of the village, 3 died at the northern entrance to the village, 2 died inside the village, and one died in Al-Taybeh.

(Here ends the excerpted Habibi description.)

Meanwhile, the Israeli government published a communique on November 11, 1956, 11 days after the massacre, declaring that due to increased gorilla activity, certain villages near the eastern border were placed under curfew for their people's safety, and that a few people seen breaking the curfew were shot by the border police.

Fourteen days after the massacre the communist section of the Knesset exploited the opportunity on November 13, 1956, while the Knesset was discussing covert activities and the loss of freedom. MK (Member of the Knesset) Esther Vilenska, by way of discussion, on the subject at hand, used a description of the Kafr Qasem massacre as an example. In response, hysteria took over in the Knesset and her remarks were striken from the record.

Finally, Tawfik Touby and Meyer Velner found a way to penetrate the intelligence and military blockade around Kafr Qasem. They found a town seemingly empty, full of fear. After walking the empty streets to no avail, they found some boys outside whom they persuaded of their good intentions. Touby documented all he heard as well as he can and within three days, his text in three languages, Arabic, English and Hebrew, was distributed internationally by mail and by hand.

This heroic deed reverbirates in Kafr Qasemite and Palestinian history. It is interesting to note that breaking this difficult story had huge ramifications. Touby describes that in 1986 an interview in the paper shows how clearly the government was implicated.** Reporter Dalia Karyl published in the weekly "Hayeer" on November 10, 1986, an interview with those put on military trial for the crime. Sergeant Shalom Awfer is quoted as saying that the attitude of administrators in the government and military towards the crime was as though it is a natural event. He also said that weeks passed without having anyone holding them accountable until the news from Touby "exploded". The reporter Dalia Karyl quotes Awfer as saying "The unit remained guarding the village till the end of the war. We remained even while the families were burying their dead. And for several weeks no one said anything to us. We were not questioned; we were not scolded; until everything exploded when Tafik Touby pulished the matter."***

** page 32 of the same book.

*** page 32-33 of the same book.