Al-Khisas raid

The al-Khisas raid took place in al-Khisas in Mandatory Palestine on December 18, 1947 near to the Syrian border and was carried out by Haganah militiamen, possibly from Palmach. The raid was performed in reprisal to a shooting in which a passenger on a horse-cart from a nearby kibbutz was shot and killed earlier that day. Local Palmach commanders mistakenly assumed the shooting emanated from al-Khisas. The rationale at that time for the raid was that "if there was no reaction to the murder, the Arabs would interpret this as a sign of weakness and an invitation to further attacks". The Hagana High Command approved an attack on men only and the burning of a few houses. Twelve Arab residents of Al-Khisas were killed, four of them children. The Jewish leadership at the time sharply criticized the attack. Three weeks later, Arab forces crossed the Syrian border and carried out a reprisal attack on the kibbutz Kfar Szold, but suffered heavy losses and were repulsed. The events led to an escalation in violence that rapidly spread through the Upper Galilee region.

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