On April 9, 1948, more than 110 Palestinian men, women and children were slaughtered in one of the most heinous crimes carried out by Zionist forces. The massacre took place in the once-prosperous village of Deir Yassin on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. The New York Times reported at the time that half of the victims were women and children.
Those who were captured were rounded up and paraded through the Old City of Jerusalem by the Zionist forces. Some were then taken to a nearby quarry and executed. Others were taken back to the village and killed.
The massacre at the village – home to an estimated 750 residents who lived in the 144 houses, according to the Institute for Palestine Studies – became one of the most horrific events to have impacted the exodus of Palestinians.
According to Zochrot, an Israeli NGO that works to support the full right of return of Palestinians who were expelled during the creation of Israel, 55 young children were orphaned as a result of the massacre.
Palestinian activist Hind al-Husseini, who was 31 at the time, found the orphans near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City. On April 25, two weeks after the massacre, Hind founded Dar Al-Tifel Al-Arabi at her family’s mansion. The organisation catered to Deir Yassin orphans, and later to orphans from all over Palestine.
Today, a psychiatric hospital stands on the remains of some village houses. What used to be the city centre is now a bus station. In 1949, the settlement Givat Shaul Bet was established on the ruins of Deir Yassin as an extension of the earlier settlement built in 1906. In the early 1980s, the usurpation of the village’s lands continued, when the Haf Nof settlement was established. Under international law, all settlements built on Palestinian lands are illegal.
