Safsaf massacre
Coordinates: 33°0′40″N 35°26′46″E / 33.01111°N 35.44611°E The Safsaf massacre occurred on 29 October 1948, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) captured the Palestinian Arab village of Safsaf in the Galilee. The village was defended by the Arab Liberation Army's Second Yarmuk Battalion.
Safsaf was the first village to fall in Operation Hiram, the aim of which, according to the IDF, was to "destroy the enemy in the central Galilee 'pocket,' to take control of the whole of the Galilee and to establish a defense line on the country's northern border." The village was attacked by two platoons of armored cars and a tank company from the 7th Brigade, and a fierce battle lasted from the evening until seven o'clock the next morning.
Evidence of a massacre in which 52–64 villagers were killed by the IDF comes from several contemporaneous Israeli government sources and Arab oral history. The evidence suggests that 52 men had their hands tied, were shot and killed, and were buried in a pit. Several women were allegedly raped, including a 14-year-old, and possibly killed. At least two internal inquiries were initiated during 1948–9 by the IDF, but their reports remain classified.
A key source are the diaries of Yosef Nachmani, a senior officer in the Haganah, who was also director of the Jewish National Fund in Eastern Galilee from 1935 until 1965. He visited Safsaf or the area around it on 6 November, accompanied by the Israeli Minority Affairs minister Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit. The men were briefed by Immanuel Friedman, a representative of the Minority Affairs ministry, who talked about "the cruel acts of our soldiers." The Nachmani diary was released by the Israeli government in the early 1980s. It had been published before, but with the passages about the massacre omitted.
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