Deir Yassin: Levitza’s Account

Deir Yassin

Levitza’s Account

from ‘Nine Measures’ by Yitzhak Levi (“Levitza”) published by the ‘Maarachot’ the Israel Defense Army Press Tel Aviv 1986

Presented by the PEACE Middle East Dialog Group

Translated by Ami Isseroff


 

Translator’s Introduction

Yitzhak Levi was chief of intelligence in Jerusalem for the Haganah at the time of the Deir Yassin massacre.

The Jerusalem Intelligence Service (Shai) was credited with some uncanny intelligence feats – not always well used by the Haganah command. Two of the branch chiefs were Chaim Herzog and Yitzhak Navon, both later presidents of Israel. There is no doubt that what Levitza said about the things in which he was in a position to know are accurate. It is probable that his book ‘Nine Measures’ is the definitive Israeli history of the battle for Jerusalem.

In previous pages Levitza explains that the revisionist Irgun and Lehi insisted on remaining separate from the Haganah on the excuse that Ben Gurion would give in to the U.N. Internationalization plan. He discusses some of the activities (and basic inactivity) of these two groups, the steps taken to neutralize their provocations of the British, and notes that they were not very well trained or equipped – not even by the poor standards of the Haganah.

The Haganah district commander at the time of the attack on Deir Yassin was David Shaltiel, a somewhat controversial figure. Another key figure is Meir Pail, head of a Palmach/Haganah special operations unit, who joined the attacking forces under cover and reported the massacre.

In the text below, translator’s comments are in curly brackets, in italics. I have referred also to the ‘ZOA Study’ by Morton Klein, posted at www.zoa.org and to Uri Milstein in these notes. ‘Uri Milstein’ is Uri Milstein, The War of Independence, Out of Crisis Came Decision, Zamora, 1991 Vol. IV in Hebrew. The relevant material in translation is posted elsewhere References to Meir Pail are based on his eyewitness account, as well as an interview with Dan McGowan in McGowan and Ellis eds, Remembering Deir Yassin , Olive Branch Press, Interlink Publishing Group 1998 page 35 ff.

Numeric references refer to the original references of Yitzhak Levi, given as end notes.

See also Map and Plan of Battle.

Translation begins below.


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Background to Deir Yassin

 

At the beginning of April, the Haganah carried out Operation Nachshon, with the participation of about 1,500 troops. The Lehi and Etzel (Irgun) commanders in Jerusalem, Mordehai Raanan and Joshua Zettler, whose units had not been active for several weeks, met and decided to attack Deir Yassin.41 Operation Nachshon had created a precedent because Haganah units had begun conquering territories and taking them over. The Etzel and Lehi were unable to carry out a large scale operation. The commanders in Jerusalem were afraid that the two organizations would become isolated and inactive in the light of the Haganah activities, so they decided to join forces in a relatively large operation that would keep them in the picture.

Zettler proposed to attack and conquer the village of Shuaffat and Sheikh Jerach. Yehoshua Goldshmidt (Gal) the Etzel operations officer who lived in Givat Shaul next to Deir Yassin, proposed to attack Deir Yassin.42 Ophir* gives these reasons for the proposal, ” Gal’s father, Reb Joseph Tzvi Goldshmidt, a Jewish ritual slaughterer (shochet) in Givat Shaul, was famous in his youth as a brave warrior against the Arab rioters from adjacent Deir Yassin…Goldshmidt learned from his father to be a soldier and also got his inspiration to fight the Arab village from him. This village had frequently endangered the lives of the inhabitants of the neighborhood in which he grew up. When he returned to Jerusalem in 1948, the old shochet reminded his son to “remember what Deir Yassin did to us. “43

Deir Yassin was situated on a hill overlooking the Motza-Qastel area and the Roman road from lower Motza to Jerusalem. Its location gave it a certain importance in ensuring security to the north and west or as a base for attacks in Givat Shaul and Beit Hakerem, as well as a link connecting the Arab villages in the south of the city with those to the north and west.

However, the people of Deir Yassin were interested in keeping out of the battles, and reached an agreement with their neighbors in Givat Shaul to maintain neighborly relations and to prevent infiltration of the members of the gangs {Palestinian irregulars} into Deir Yassin. The agreement was passed to district headquarters by the Hagana intelligence Service on Jan 20th {1948} for approval. Communications arrangements were made whereby the people of Deir Yassin would inform the Hagana about movements of outsiders in the area, and likewise arrangements were made to allow vehicles from the village to pass through Givat Shaul.44

The situation of Deir Yassin following the agreement was similar to that of Abu Ghosh, which was not taken by our forces during the War of Independence. The inhabitants of Deir Yassin fulfilled the agreement scrupulously.

On the night of January 11th an Arab gang tried to set up a base in the village mill. The people of Deir Yassin opposed this entry with force. In the exchange of fire the son of the miller was killed. The inhabitants called the police and in the end the attempt of the gang to hold the place was frustrated.45 On the 27th of the January a force {belonging to} Abdel-Khader {Abdel Khader El-Husseini Suleiman} tried to enter the village. Again the village people resisted the encampment of the force in their twon, and the gang left in the direction of Beth Jallah.46 On March 30th there was a report that 150 troops, mostly Iraqi and Syrian, had entered Deir Yassin, and that the villagers were leaving. The Arab command pressured the villagers to agree to the presence of the troops, but gave up in the face of the determined resistance of the inhabitants. {A.I. – This must be compared with the text of the ZOA report, and Uri Milstein, which mentions only the fact that the troops entered – not that they left} On the 7th of April, two days before Deir Yassin was attacked by Etzel and Lehi, the Haganah Intelligence Service announced that three days previously there had been a meeting

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in Ein Kerem {Arab village} between the elders of both villages, in which Kemal Erikat, Abdel-Khader’s deputy, participated. He proposed to bring foreign troops into the villages to strengthen them. The elders of Deir Yassin rejected the proposal and said that peaceful relations were in effect with their Jewish neighbors, and they did not want to break the peace .47

The revisionist organization were well acquainted with the existence of the agreement. In the Lehi Journal ‘Ma’as’ that appeared three weeks before the attack on the village, we find “The elders of the Arab village of Deir Yassin approached the leaders of Givat Shaul and asked to conclude a non-aggression pact. The agreement has been kept to date.”48 Contrarily, the Lehi people claimed afterwards that the village was an active nest of terrorists, that Deir Yassin served as a base for attacks on Jewish neighborhoods in the city, and that among the dead there were also Syrians and Iraqis who were encamped in the village.49 All of these claims had no factual basis whatever.

The Decision to Conquer Deir Yassin

 

District headquarters saw no reason to take over the village, as long as our forces were in Motza. On the 6th of April the Revisionist organizations decided to conquer Deir Yassin. In that period a particularly difficult situation developed in the Qastel and Lower Motza, as the Arabs had increased their pressure. The Palmach was busy with operation Nachshon and the district command had no reinforcements it could send to the Qastel. Yeshurun Schiff, Commander of the Michmash regiment, turned to the operations officer of the Irgun on his own initiative, and asked him to give him the use of the Irgun troops as reinforcements for the Qastel. The Irgun posed three conditions: receipt of permission of the Irgun commander in Tel-Aviv, command over the entire sector, and weapons from the Haganah. Schiff also turned to the Lehi and got a similar answer. Additionally, both organizations required that the district commander submit a formal request for help to them. When Shaltiel found out about Schiff’s contacts with the Irgun and Lehi, he reprimanded him and told him to stop all negotiations with them. According to Ophir’s account, the commanders of the two organizations then met, on the 6th of April and decided to attack Deir Yassin. The date of the decision invalidates the claim made afterwards that the conquest of Deir Yassin was coordinated to coincide with the reconquest of the Qastel that was carried out on the night of 8/9 April.50 {this is exactly the claim made in the ZOA study-A.I.}

News of the revisionist decision to conquer Deir Yassin caught Shaltiel by surprise and he tried to change their target and get them to help him in the battle for the Qastel. But they were unresponsive. Meir Pail, who was in Jerusalem at that time on an intelligence mission for the Palmach, said:

The commanders of the underground groups came to Shaltiel and asked his approval for the operation. Shaltiel was surprised at their choice and asked, “Why go to Deir Yassin? It is a quiet village. There is a non-aggression pact between Givat Shaul and the Mukhtar of Deir Yassin. The village is not a security problem in any way. Our problem is in the battle for the Qastel. I suggest you participate in the operations in that area. I will give you a base in Bayit Vagan, and from their you will take over Ein Kerem, which is providing Arab reinforcements to the Qastel.” The commanders of the underground groups rejected this suggestion as too complicated. Shaltiel said, “I will give you an easier mission. Take Motza as a base and attack Qolonia, where the gangs attacking Motza have their base. You can do whatever you please there.”51 {A.I. – this may be viewed as evidence that Shaltiel understood what would happen in an Irgun attack, or it may just mean he was giving them freedom of operation – the Hebrew is ‘kchol sh’oleh al ruchachem}

When it became clear to Shaltiel that he could not move the revisionists from attacking Deir Yassin, he informed them in writing that he had no objection to attacking the village.52 {A.I.- Some of the text of the letter is given in U. Milstein, page 259 – ‘I have no objection to your carrying out the operation, on condition that you have the strength to hold it (Deir Yassin)” This was a crucial point.} Shaltiel chose to provide this permission, since he wanted to keep his authority in at least some form, because it was clear to him that the Irgun and Lechi were going to carry out their plan in any event.

When I found out about Shaltiel’s letter to the Irgun, I hurried to him and explained the gravity of what he had done. The villagers were faithful to the treaty we had with them and we must not hurt them in such an ugly way. I requested permission to inform the villagers that the Haganah is no longer responsible for their security and to advise them to leave the village, without telling them that an attack was imminent. Shaltiel rejected my request, and said he could not endanger an operation conducted by Jews by any hint to the Arabs, even if there was an agreement with them. I believe even

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today, that if Shaltiel had forbidden the attack based on the treaty with Deir Yassin, they would have refrained from attacking the village.

Operation Deir Yassin

 

Much has been written about Deir Yassin, whether from disgust or from the desire to obscure and whitewash what happened there. If we want an accurate description, we must ignore the versions that were written later, and reexamine the documents that were written soon after the event, in eye-witness reports or in the debriefings.

On April 10, on the day following the conquest of the village, Mordehai Gihon (‘Elazar’) the intelligence officer of the Wwstern sector of the city (area 2), who was also among the commanders of the Haganah forces on Mt Sharafa (Mt. Herzl) submitted a thorough report of the events at Deir Yassin. Here are sections from that report:

“Operation – most of the force came from Giv’at Shaul. They started at 3:00 A.M. An Irgun platoon left from Yefe Nof. These divided into two groups. One advanced over the west ridges of Deir Yassin, to prevent the possibility of reinforcements coming from Ein Kerem. The second group approached the village from the direction of Wadi El Bitar, and after them came a third group.”

The report does not record that a group of Lehi people started out from Giv’at Shaul with a loudspeaker mounted on a vehicle. According to the plan, it was supposed to warn the villagers not to resist and to order them to surrender. But the road to the village was strewn with ruts, and when the vehicle got to a ditch at the entrance to the village it was shaken up badly and the loudspeaker was put out of commission. {A.I. there are several versions of this reported in Uri Milstein and by Meir Pail. In some stories an announcement was made, but it was made after the battle had started}

The report continues: “The attack began at 4:45 A.M. At first there was little resistance. The first casualties among the attackers were brought to Givat Shaul at 5:00 AM. An Irgun detachment that approached to the west of the village at first moved in the direction of the village, but then when down to Wadi El-Bitar. When they left the high ground, the Arabs who had run away before came back, and retook the place. By leaving the heights, this detachment was the cause of the fact that the village was not taken in the early morning hours. They gave the villagers a chance to return and organize armed resistance.”

The villagers found out about the invasion when the watchmen saw the approaching force and opened fire. The attackers entered the village and met weak resistance. Most of the male inhabitants fled with their weapons. After the Irgun detachment that had climbed the peak west of the village had retreated into the Wadi, the Arabs retook positions in the high house of the Mukhtar, in the western part of the village, and began sniping at the attackers. The enemy fire was effective. By 10:00 AM the Arabs had succeeded in causing forty casualties in the attacking force, and in pinning it down for cover among the houses that had been conquered previously. The attack had been contained. The report records:

RE: order and discipline during the attack – It is to be noted that there was awful disorder during the attack: lack of discipline and unwillingness to carry our missions and to provide aid to others; there was no knowledge of the topography of the village; no coordination between the actions of the different forces and no communication between them; ignorance of field maneuvers. Consequently, when dawn came up, many were wounded because they were not careful. They were hit by snipers who holed-up in the houses and took up positions in the village. They didn’t provide assistance to their wounded… none of their reserve people knew how to handle weapons.”

Additionally, both the commander of the force, Ben-Zion Cohen, an the commander of the Irgun vanguard Yehuda Segal were wounded, and also some of the lower-ranking officers, helping explain the chaos that was rife in the attacking force. Actually, control over the soldiers had been lost, and the result was shameful. Only after the Palmach detachment that had been called in fired some mortar rounds at the house of the Mukhtar did the Arabs leave the house, and then the attackers took over the entire village and cleared it of snipers.

During the operation and thereafter 254 persons were killed, including mostly women and children. {the number is based on Irgun figures and apparently incorrect and exaggerated – A.I.} Even if it is understandable that some

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of them were killed in the crossfire, there were quite a few cases indeed of shooting and putting to death that had no moral or military justification. The circumstances that caused this are discussed later in this chapter. At this point I note that in the absence of control over the force, it was no longer an organized army, and the feelings of revenge burst forth with no restraint. Another revolting event was the parading of tens of captives in trucks through the city. Moreover, a number of the people who were led in this parade, and among them the son of the Mukhtar, who was a Haganah informant, {Levitza would obviously know about this} were killed afterwards {in the quarry according to Meir Pail}. There were numerous cases of taking of jewelry and thefts of money and brutal and coarse treatment. All these are discussed later in the chapter. {not really, A.I.}

The report continues as follows:

“The Irgun and Lechi people announced that they will hold the village until the Haganah will take it over. The dead were lying in the houses and the fields without burial — they claimed that it was the job of the Haganah to bury the dead.— in a conversation with the Irgun planning officer, he expressed great disappointment in the operation and claimed the operation was valuable only as a maneuver and training exercise.

RE our aid to revisionist forces: it should be noted to begin with that the operation was carried out without the agreement of our forces [the writer of the report did not know about Shaltiel’s letter, which was known only to a few officers in the district command- Y.L.]. After the liaison officer of the revisionists reported the hour of the attack, our positions were given appropriate orders regarding aid in time of retreat and medical assistance – – – Since the entire operation was militarily deficient, it was decided during the morning to aid with fire power. This aid consisted of two operations: A) Preventing the approach of Arab reinforcements from the direction of Malcha and Ein-Kerem; B) rear-attacks on the Arabs who had dug in on the west ridge of the village. These were carried out from the positions in Sharfa (Mt. Herzl). A Spandau was used. The Arabs were surprised by the fire and suffered significant casualties, as they were forced to expose themselves either to our fire or that of the attackers.

As an intelligence office and one of the officers knowledgeable about affairs in the sector, including intelligence, I must note that this operation may bring about results opposite to those hoped for by those who carried it out. The murder of falachim and innocent citizens, faithful allies of the western sector, who kept faith despite pressure from the gangs, even during the conquest of Sharfa, {Mt Herzl} may lose us the trust of all those Arabs who hoped to be saved from destruction by agreements with us.”53 {A.I. This report by Gihon is explicit. This portion of the report, which indicates a massacre independently of Meir Pail, is not cited by Milstein or by the ZOA.}

On the 12th of April the Jerusalem Information Service (Shai) submitted a summary report about Deir Yassin. {Though} the report is general identical with that of the intelligence officer known as “Elazar,” it raises several additional points: When the first attackers were killed, chaos took over among them, especially among the Irgun people. Some of the attackers wanted to retreat, and continued in battle only after coaxing. Several of the prisoners were murdered. The defense of the village was not strong, there were no foreign Arabs in the village. Great quantities of food were captured, but the quantity of weapons was not great. Large quantities of money and home furnishings were taken. There were cases of fights between officers and privates over the booty. Lehi people are quite bitter about the inefficiency of the Irgun people.54

There are several testimonies regarding the aid provided by the Haganah to the Irgun and the Lechi. Zalman Meret, commander of the Moriah regiment, says he was with Shaltiel in Giv’at Shaul during the operation. The Lechi commander asked for Shaltiel’s aid, and Shaltiel granted his request, after consultations, and a platoon of the Palmach and a medium machine gun were put into operation on his orders.55 The Palmach opened fire on the Arabs in the house of the Mukhtar on the hill in Deir Yassin. According to the testimony of Mordehai Weg (Yaki) the commander of company D in the Harel/4 Brigade, the Palmach unit entered the operation in this way. “I was in the area securing the road from Colonia to Jerusalem At 6:30 I was informed about Deir Yassin and their desperate situation, because they were unable to get their wounded out. They ask for arms, cover and personnel, since they didn’t have any professionals. I asked permission of the district commander, via the battalion intelligence officer. The answer was: ‘You are to go out and provide cover for taking out the wounded only’ —I met with the commanders in both groups and asked for a map and demanded a detailed explanation – – – they

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explained that they had no contact except by runners – – – they mentioned a certain house in the west of the village. – – – there were 25 men there with two machine guns and rifles, who were pinned down by snipers. There was no officer among them and the men did not obey orders, since they belonged to different groups. I shot 3 shells at the north wing of the building. After the shelling the shooting stopped – – – I reported to the district commander and got an order: “you must be ready to cover removal of wounded or retreat, but you mustn’t intervene in any battle action.”56

Yaki’s report fits the description provided by Shmuel Katz in his book “Day of Fire” “By 10:00 A.M. 40 men had been wounded from among the attackers – four dead, one dying. They had already conquered the entire village except the house of the Mukhtar. A steady fire came out of that house for another two hours. Only when a Palmach platoon came to the village on its own initiative and threatened the house with a 2” mortar, did this last outpost fall.57 {A.I. – however, in Uri Milstein, page 263 there is a second account given of 4 Palmach people who came from Camp Schneller in a taxi – apparently confirmed in testimony in the Jobotinsky arhives by Yehoshua Gorodenchik, Etzel commander)

Yehoshua Ophir, in his book “On the Walls,” explains the killing of women thus: “many men dressed up as women, and Irgun women who did searches exposed them. There were also Arab women fighting, and it was difficult to distinguish between them and the others.” Ophir’s version is not worthy of serious consideration. {A.I. – However, there are at least two separate reports of men dressed as women in Uri Milstein. For example, page 276} On the other hand, in an article published in Yedioth Achronot on 4.4.72, Mordehai Raanan, the district commander of the Irgun says that the operation was resumed at 11:00 (after Weg’s mortar fire). The Irgun people treated each house as a fortified position. When they got to the house next to the place where Yehuda Segal, one of the commanders, was wounded (and died thereafter) the people living in the house were asked to leave it, and indeed they came out with their hands up. It was a family of nine people, including a woman and child. One of the Irgun fighters shot them down with a machine gun. While he was shooting he yelled “This is for Yiftach” {nom de guerre of Yehuda Segal. The full quote is given in Milstein P. 276, in which it is further elaborated that the fighter was holding a Bren gun in his hands, and that an Arab dressed as a woman took out a “rifle” and tried to shoot when he felt he had been discovered. }.

When the people living in the other houses saw what had happened, they refused to come out and surrender, and the houses were blown up with the people inside. Raanan denies the story about murder in the Giv’at Shaul quarry. Except for the people killed in the houses and the nine that were killed with the machine gun, nobody was hurt.58

On the same page of the same paper, Meir Pail, who visited the village recounts, “it was noon {A.I.– noon – tzohoraim is not an exact hour} when the battle had ended and the shooting stopped. The atmosphere became calmer. But the village did not surrender… The Lechi and Irgun fighters… started clearing the houses. They shot with every weapon they had and threw explosives into the houses. They shot at whoever they saw in the houses, including women and children. And the commanders didn’t even try to stop this shameful carnage.”

Pa’il says that after the parade of captives in streets of the city, some of the men were taken to the quarry and shot.59 On the 12th of April a medical committee of the Physicians Association visited the village. The members of the committee, Dr. Avigdori and Dr. Druyan testify that mainly bodies of women and children were found in the rooms of houses, riddled with bullets.60 They were not killed by blowing up the houses, and no adult male bodies were found in the rooms. {This is the continuation of testimony cited by Morton Klein in the ZOA report. He does not cite this. A more precise account is given in Uri Milstein, page 271. The doctors specifically stated that all the people died of gun shot }

Harry Levin, a journalist, who was later a consul in the U.S., testifies in his book about the war in Jerusalem, that he saw with his own eyes, “three trucks going down King George street, back and forth, loaded with men, women and children, with their hands over their heads, guarded by Jews armed with rifles and Stens.”61 Thousands of people in Jerusalem saw this convoy.

The Rage and the Protest

 

The honor of the Hebrew warrior was desecrated in the action at Deir Yassin. A wave of revulsion, shame and scorn flooded Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency, the Chief Rabbinate and the district command published condemnations and protests. As a reaction the two {revisionist} groups published a notice saying that in Deir Yassin they had eradicated gangs of Arab criminals who had dug in to the place and threatened the western neighborhoods of the City. The notice did not deny the massacre and expressed no remorse. On the other hand, the notice did say “The indentured slaves, the leaders of the nation, have not yet learned that one must talk to each enemy and criminal in his own language. – – – The conquest of Deir Yassin has put awe and fear into the Arabs in all surrounding villages.”62 {A.I.-Meir Pail refutes the claim that this was an effective military tactic, or that resistance was necessarily less after Deir Yassin}

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A few days later, the national Irgun command in Tel – Aviv published an additional notice, worded slightly differently, which included regret at the injuries to civilian populace during the operation. At the Lehi national conference on 9 Adar Taf Shin Taf {1949} , about a year after the massacre, Nathan Yellin Mor, Commander in Chief of the Lechi, said this ” I was asked about Deir Yassin… My opinion was negative and I wrote this to the person responsible for Jerusalem then. Until today I have been unable to find out how big the massacre was in the operation. When I remember how my mother and sister and other members of my family were led off to slaughter, I cannot be reconciled with this massacre. I know that things happen in the heat of battle, and I know that the people who do this do not plan it in advance. They kill, because their friends were killed and wounded, and they want revenge at that moment. I know that in many nations and armies things like that are done. But who asks you to come and boast about such things?”63

We know that the British thought of bombing Deir Yassin after it was held by our forces, in response to the massacre. In a telegram sent by the High Commissioner to the Colonial Minister on April 17th, the contents of which reached the Shai, the Commissioner announced that he decided in the end not to bomb the village with the aircraft brought specially for this purpose from Iraq. The Commissioner noted however in his telegram that the Arab attack on the Hadassah convoy was revenge for Deir Yassin.64 This explains the behavior of the British in the affair of the convoy to Mt. Scopus.{A.I – After Deir Yassin, Arabs attacked a convoy of nurses and doctors to Mt Scopus, where Hadassah hospital was located, and butchered a large number of nurses and doctors, supposedly in revenge for Deir Yassin. However, there were Arab massacres prior to Deir Yassin. Most notably, about 70 Haifa oil refinery workers were murdered on Jan 17, 1948sparked by a terror attack by dissidents}.

 

————

Notes and References

*Ophir – Yehoshua Ophir – ‘al Hachomot’ (‘On the Walls’) Tel Aviv, Jabotinsky Center, 1951

Testimony – Testimony of soldiers gathered in the IDF arcives by Ya’akov Eshed

41. Ophir P. 50; Yediot Ahronoth 4.4.72 42. Ophir P. 50; Yediot Ahronoth 4.4.72 43. Ophir 49 44. IDF Archives 2644/49/359 427; Ma’as number ayin heh; Lehi, collected writings Vol 2 p.972,989,990. 45. Chashmonai Dairy (IDF Archives) 12 January Paragraph 9;IDF Archives 2504/49/16 15; 46. Chashmonai Dairy (IDF Archives) 28 January Paragraph 10; IDF Archives 446/48/20 66; 47. IDF Archives 4944/49/520 42; 446/48/22 60,65;500/48/29 409; 446/48/18 57; 48. Ma’as number ayin heh; Lehi, collected writings Vol 2 p.972,989,990. 49. IDF Archives 500/48/29 409 – information packet paragraph 2. 50. Ophir 56; Testimony 61 page 3;Testimony 75 paragraph 23 51. Yedioth Ahronoth 4.4.72 – Dir Yassin – Meir Pa’il’s account; to 53 paragraph 10;        Testimony 75 paragraph 23 52. IDF Archives 5440/49 /24 telegram 236; Ophir 55-57; Yedioth loc. cit. 53. Yitzhak Levi file – conquest of Deir Yassin. 54. IDF Archives 500/48 /35 12; op. cit. 5440/49 /1 317. 55. Testimony 32 page 5; Ophir 60; 56. Yitzhak Levi file – testimony of Ya’akov Vag. 57. Samuel Katz, Day of Fire, Jerusalem 1966, p 368 58. Ophir, 60; Yediot loc cit – testimony of Mordehai Ra’anan. 59. Yitzhak Levi file – Meir Pilevsky’s report; Yediot loc. Cit – testimony of Meir Pa’il 60. Ophir 66; IDF Archives 500/48 /35 13 61. Levin, Harry, Jerusalem Embattled, London Gollancz 1950 p 57 62. Ophir, 65; Lechi Archives, Part B page 989-990 63. Minutes of the Lechi Nat. Conference P 58; Nathan Yellin Mor, Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (Lochamei Herut Yisrael) Jerusalam, Shikmona, 1972; Aviezer Goldstein Lehavot bishmei Yerushalayim (Flames in the skies of Jerusalem) no date given. 64.  IDF Archives 5440/49 /1 5.

 

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