Ein al-Zeitun massacre

Background

Ein al-Zeitun was a Palestinian Arab village of approximately 800 inhabitants located in the area of Safed during the British Mandate for Palestine. Local Jews believed that Arabs from the village had participated in the 1929 Palestine riots, in which Jews in the region were killed, and the 1948 attack on Ein al-Zeitun is assumed to have been motivated in part by revenge for those earlier events.

The Massacre

On May 1, 1948, during the 1948 Palestine war, the 3rd Battalion of the Palmach, under the command of Moshe Kelman, attacked Ein al-Zeitun as a preliminary operation ahead of a planned assault on the Arab quarter of Safed. Davidka mortar bombs were reportedly used for the first time during this attack. The village was captured without significant resistance. Most villagers fled during the fighting; the remainder — described as numbering between 30 and 100 men aged 20 to 40 — were forcibly expelled afterward.

Following the capture of the village, Palmach soldiers destroyed it. Palmach officer Elad Peled is quoted recalling that soldiers "began blowing up the village" and "went berserk, breaking and destroying property," while residents of Safed reportedly viewed the destruction as vengeance for earlier violence against Jews in Safed and Ein Zeitim.

A Yiftah HQ report indicated that 30 Arab prisoners were transferred to the Golani Brigade. However, according to the account attributed to Netiva Ben-Yehuda, one or two days later, two Palmach soldiers acting on the orders of Third Battalion commander Moshe Kelman killed several dozen prisoners — reportedly including young men from Ein al-Zeitun — in a gully between the village and Safed. The captives had allegedly been tied up and left in the gully for two days before being killed by two soldiers who agreed to carry out Kelman's order after most refused. When word of the killings began to circulate, soldiers, including Ben-Yehuda, were reportedly assigned to untie and bury the bodies out of concern that British or UN investigators might arrive.

A separate testimony from soldier Aharon Yo'eli, obtained by historian Uri Milstein, describes two men arriving from Safed who took 23 men from the village, stripped them of valuables, and shot them on a hill; other villagers were reportedly expelled toward the Germak mountain area.

Aftermath

Syrian authorities subsequently alleged that women had been raped during the events. The destruction of the village and the associated killings are described as having terrified Arab residents of Safed and contributing to their flight in the following days. A separate account from Hans Lebrecht describes finding many bodies, including those of women, children, and infants, near the village mosque after being sent to build a water pump station; he stated he arranged for the bodies to be burned.