MEMORIAL on the 50th Anniversary of the Kafr Qasem Massacre

Direct Witness to the Kafr Qasem Massacre: Mustafa Abdalqader Sarsour AKA Abu Thiab*

Abu Thiab

….I was 16 years old [at the time of the massacre in 1956]. We were returning from work. Before going home, I went to the vegetable market in Petah Tiva. There I met Jumma Rasheed Budeir who was driving the car belonging to the now departed Umar Alhaj Mahmoud. with him was Mahmoud Abdalghafer Rayan, from Kafr Bara, and Mustafa Umar, and Saleh Ahmad Khader.

We continued and reached the current location of the memorial stone. We saw the soldiers firing on those already there. Asaad Husein Isaa, father of Fathi, was wounded and his brother, the martyr Abed Isaa also. I saw the bodies flat on the ground and so I laid down in the car. [Abu Thiab is describing the fifth wave of killing. Beside the wounded who were afraid to move, there were already 8 dead scattered in the area which he is here referring to.]

One of the soldiers who had fired on Asaad and Abed, said “go quickly from here."

The martyr Mahmoud Abdalghafer said “what do they want?” And he remained there. The soldiers fired on us. The bullets came through the windows of the car, but we escaped and went to the house of the Basutas. Umar Alhaj and I stayed, then I went to the house of Jumma Rasheed and stayed in for three days until the curfew ended.

I returned hom to my family who thought that I had been killed. After visiting home, I went to the place where the killing took place and saw my bicycle. It had bullet holes. I went to Mahmoud Abdalghafer and found that he had been killed.