The Palestine Land Society (London) has produced a new publication as a contribution to the 75-year commemoration of Palestine’s Nakba (Catastrophe). This review focuses on the Massacre of al-Duwayima, one of the emblematic events in the continuum of Israel’s persecution and dispossession of Palestine, the land and its people.
Al-Dawayima was a Palestinian village that crowned top of a wide rocky hill in the western part of the Jabal al-Khalil (Hebron Hills). Some biblical scholars have imagined that al-Duwayima occupies the spot referred to in the Old Testament (Joshua 15:39) as the village of Bozkath, meaning craggy or rocky, but in the lowlands.
In 1948, the village had a population of 4,304, which consisted of several Palestinian clans and families. The village of al-Duwayima was built in the shape of a star, allowing businesses and trade to expand in all directions. A mosque stood at the center of the village. Shops were scattered inside neighborhoods near the village center, whose houses were built of stone and mud and separated from each other by narrow paths and alleys.
The village economy was mostly based on agriculture, as the farmers on al-Duwayima’s fertile land famously grew wheat, barley, corn, lentils, olives, figs, grapes and pomegranates, among other fruits and vegetables. The village had good trade relations with the cities of al-Khalil (Hebron), Gaza, and surrounding villages, as well as the more-distant Palestinian cities of Jaffa and Haifa. Al-Duwayima had several holy and archaeological significant sites and was home to a thriving and growing population.
The Zionist colonization of Palestine advance from its early origins in Europe at the turn of the 20th century. By April 1948, the total force of the Zionist militia was 65,000 troops, many of whom were well trained and led by veteran European officers of WWII. The Zionists also were able to manufacture ammunition and armored vehicles and, as such, were not affected by the arms embargo imposed by the British Mandate.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians were defenseless, without a single command, wireless or armor. The Arab irregular volunteers who came to help were a motley, ineffective group that often caused more damage rendered support. In the first three months of 1948, colonizing Jewish terrorists carried out serial military Operations against the civilian population, blowing up buses and Palestinian homes.
By March 1948, the Zionist High Command, including the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund, devised the infamous Tokhnit Dalet (Plan D), explicitly prescribed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine through a series of strategic massacres already underway since 1937. In cities, the plan called for “occupation and control of all isolated Arab neighborhoods and encirclement of Arab municipal area[s] and termination of its vital services (water, electricity, fuel, etc.)… [I]n case of resistance, the population will be expelled.” Plan D also called for the “destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up and planting mines in the debris)” to prevent the return of refugees.
Then came the massacre of al-Duwayima in late October 1948. The new publication from Palestine Land Society details the massacres and provides its historic context.
Download the 40-page English-language publication here.
Photo on front page: A remaining building on the site of al-Duwayima village. Source: Mohammad Hamdan. Image on this page: Cover of the PLS publication, الدوايمة ed Duwayima 1948 Massacre. Source: PLS.
