The Qibya Massacre, 1953.

Background

Under the 1949 armistice agreements, Israel and Jordan created a demarkation line, 620 km long, known as the Green Line, between Israel and the Jordan-controlled West Bank.

There followed low-intensity warfare between the Israelis, Palestinian infiltrators, and Jordanians. Some of these intrusions were real attacks, but there were also "infiltrations" by Palestinian farmers, crossing the line into Israel to harvest olives from their former lands. Over the period June 1949 - January 1953, the Israelis complained to the Mixed Armistice Commission (MAC) of 55 Israeli deaths, while Jordan complained of 89 Israeli killings of West Bank residents and Jordanians. Doubtless both numbers were exaggerated.

There was also friction over an Israeli plan to divert water from the Jordan river to the Negev, and Moshe Dayan, unannounced, had sent bulldozers into the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria and started digging. This had all the hallmarks, according to Avi Shlaim, of the Dayan technique of creeping annexation.

Jordan claimed, persuasively, that they were trying to prevent intrusions into Israel. The Hashemite king didn’t really want a border war. However, in 1953, the warfare began to escalate. Between January 1 and 15 October, the UN Security Council found 21 violations of the General Armistice Agreement; 16 were by Israel.

The immediate trigger for the Qibya massacre was a hand-grenade attack, which the Jordanians disavowed, on the Israeli village of Moshad Yahud. This killed a woman and two small children. Jordan offered to help track down the killer, but Israel refused their help.

The attack

The order to attack Qibya, in retaliation, was given by the bloodthirsty but foolhardy Pinhas Lavon. Lavon, formally a minister without portfolio, was acting defense minister while David Ben Gurion took one of his periodic leaves to his kibbutz in the central Negev. Lavon did not consult the cabinet, and only casually informed Moshe Sharrett, the acting prime minister. When the Jordanian representative to the Mixed Armistice Commission denounced the murders at Moshad Yahud, and promised cooperation in tracking down the perpetrator(s), Sharrett told Lavon to call off the attack. Lavon replied that he’d check with Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion denied he’d been consulted but said he would approved of the attack. 

The atrocity was carried out by Ariel Sharon’s merry band of killers, Unit 101. The order was passed to Sharon by Moshe Dayan, the General Staff’s chief of operations. Sharon was ordered to penetrate Qibya, blow up houses, and inflict heavy caualties on the inhabitants. 

On the evening of October 13, Unit 101 attacked, killing 69 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and reducing the village to rubble, by demolishing 45 houses. The UN observer noted

One story was repeated time after time: the bullet splintered door, the body sprawled across the threshold, indicating that the inhabitants had been forced by heavy fire to stay inside until their homes were blown up over them.

Sharett, who was horrified, wanted to issue a statement expressing regret. Ben Gurion tried to claim the attack had been carried out by irate Israeli villagers, and he won the support of the cabinet. The problem was, nobody believed the lie. General Benneke, of the MAC, reported...

The evidence noted indicated that this raid was weIl.planned and carried out by men expertly trained in the fundamentals of sudden and sustained attack. It seems highly improbahle that other than active military forces could have carried out this raid without suffering heavy casualties from their own fire, or from the explosions of their demolition charges.

Time Magazine was even more scathing

At 9.30 one night, most of the people were just going to bed in the Jordanian village of Qibya, a mile and a half beyond the Israeli frontier [the Armistice Line].  On this quiet night, as usual, everyone put his trust in the U.N. 'truce' and 30 skimpily armed Jordanian national guardsmen. Suddenly, Israeli artillery, previously zeroed onto target, opened up, and a 600-man battallion of uniformed Israeli regulars swept across the border to encircle the village. For the next 2½ hours the town shuddered under shell bursts and small-arms fire; villagers, screaming .and milling, rushed out to the surrounding fields and olive groves.

Then the guardsmen's ammo (25 rounds per man) gave out, and the Israelis moved into Qibya with rifle and Sten guns. They shot every man woman and child they could find, then turned their fire on the cattle. After that they dynamited 42 houses, a school and a mosque [the school can be seen on the map]. The cries of the dying could he heard amid the explosions. The villagers huddled in the grass could see Israeli soldiers slouching in the doorways of their homes, smoking and joking, their young faces illuminated by the flames. By 3 a.m., the Israelis' work was done. 

Sixty-six died that night. It was the bloodiest night of border warfare since the 1949 armistice. In the slaughter of Qibya, Israel made peace harder than ever to attain.

(the ultimate casualty count seems to have been 69) 

Sharon’s lies were even more egregious. He claimed he had no idea the buildings were occupied when he blew them up, when the UN clearly knew his unit had made sure the inhabitants were inside. He also claimed Ben Gurion congratulated him on the operation. Dayan claimed the Arab Legion had committed the murder for which Qibya was an overwhelming heavy-handed reprisal. Dayan had absolutely no evidence of this. 

Aftermath

The US government, which was not yet in Israel’s pocket, issued a statement on October 19.

The U.S. Government has the deepest sympathy for the families of those who lost their lives in and near Qibya during the recent attack by Israeli forces. The shocking reports which have reached the Department of State of the loss of lives and property involved in this incident convince us that those who are responsible should be brought to account and that effective measures should be taken to prevent such incidents in the future. 

Finally, the UN Security Council resolved on November 24, 1953

Recalling its previous resolutions on the Palestine question, particularly resolutions 54 (1948) of 15 July 1948, 73 (1949) of 11 August 1949 and 93 (1951) of 18 May 1951 concerning methods for maintaining the armistice and resolving disputes through the Mixed Armistice Commissions,

Noting the reports of 27 October 1953 and 9 November 1953  to the Security Council by the Chief of Staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine and the statements to the Council by the representatives of Jordan and Israel,

1. Finds that the retaliatory action at Qibya taken by armed forces of Israel on 14-15 October 1953 and all such actions constitute a violation of the cease-fire provisions of Security Council resolution 54 (1948) and are inconsistent with the parties' obligations under the General Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan  and the Charter of the United Nations;

2. Expresses the strongest censure of that action, which can only prejudice the chances of that peaceful settlement which both parties, in accordance with the Charter, are bound to seek, and calls upon Israel to take effective measures to prevent all such actions in the future.

Israel’s response was to withdraw from the Mixed Armistice Commission six months later. Israel had already grown to hate the UN.