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Hula massacre

The Hula massacre took place sometine in the late October 1948 between the 24th and 29th. Hula was a village in Lebanon 3 km west of Kibbutz Manara, not far from the Litani River. It was captured on October 24 by the Carmeli Brigade without any resistance at all. Over 50 captured men were sub-machinegunned down in a house whereafter the house was blown up on top of them.

The murderer, Shmuel Lahis, was brought to justice in an Israeli military court where he was given a one year sentence. Due to the amnesty that he received he didn't even serve that long in jail. He later became Secretary General of the Jewish Agency.

Table of contents
1 Eye witness accounts
2 See also
3 External Links & References

Eye witness accounts

Div Yirmiya's letter published in Al Hamishmar:

I received a report that there had been no resistance in the village, that there was no enemy activity in the area, and that about a hundred people were left in the village. They had surrendered and requested to stay. The men among them were kept in one house under guard. I was brought there and saw about 35 men. [Yirmiya does not remember the exact number today, and there were in fact over 50 men there] in the age range15 -60, including one Lebanese soldier in uniform.... When I returned to the village the following morning with an order to send the villagers away, I found out that, while I was away, two of the troops' officers had killed all of the captives who were in the house with a sub-machine gun, and had then blown up the house on top of them to be their grave. The women and children were sent west.

When I asked him why he had done this, the officer answered that this was 'his revenge for the murder of his best friends in the [Haifa] refineries.(Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. VII, no. 4 (summer1978 ), number28 , pp.143 -145)

See also

External Links & References