Days of Palestine – Jerusalem
An Israeli newspaper has revealed fresh details from court documents of a trial held in the past for Israeli perpetrators of the horrific 1956 Kafr Qasem massacre against Palestinian farmers.
The massacre was committed by Israeli border police soldiers in Kafr Qasem village in 1948 occupied Palestine on the first day of the tripartite aggression against Egypt on October 29, 1956.
50 Palestinian civilians, including children, elderlies and a pregnant woman, were massacred by Israeli soldiers on that day when they returned home from the fields without knowing that the time of a military curfew on their village had been changed and already started.
According to Haaretz newspaper, the newly uncovered transcripts were from a 1957 court trial, in which Haim Levy, who commanded the border police’s southern company, gave his testimony about his involvement in the massacre.
The transcripts were released by the Israeli war ministry five years after historian Adam Raz, from the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, filed a suit petitioning for the sealed trial documents to be made public.
The ministry had refused for long years to release the transcripts, claiming their content could jeopardize Israel’s national security.
Last May, Israel occupation’s military court of appeals announced that hundreds of pages from the trial would be published soon following a March court ruling.
According to the released documents, Levy confirmed that he received an order from his superior officer to shoot any Palestinian who broke the curfew, even if they did not know about the measure.
He noted that his battalion chief Shmuel Malinki said it was “desirable that there be a number of casualties,” and that if there were deaths on the first day, it would make the rest of the curfew easier.
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