2026-06-08

1967년 제6일 전쟁 당시 이스라엘 군이 자행한 민간인 학살과 강제 추방의 실상

제시된 하아레츠 기사와 소셜 미디어 게시물 내용을 바탕으로 요청하신 요약과 평론을 작성하였습니다.

요약

이 자료는 1967년 제6일 전쟁 당시 이스라엘 군이 자행한 민간인 학살과 강제 추방의 실상을 이스라엘 언론 하아레츠의 보도를 통해 폭로하고 있다.

참전 군인들의 증언과 인간성 상실: 당시 참전했던 군인들은 가자 지구와 시나이반도 등에서 저항하지 않는 아랍인을 조직적으로 사살하라는 명령을 받았다고 고백한다. 이 과정에서 군인들은 상대방을 인간으로 보지 않게 되었으며, 민간인과 포로를 가리지 않고 사살하는 일이 빈번하게 일어났다고 증언한다.
귀환 민간인 표적 사살: 전쟁 직후 요르단강을 건너 서안지구의 집으로 돌아오려던 수천 명의 공포에 질린 Palestinian 피난민들을 향해 이스라엘 군은 무차별 매복 사격(Shoot-to-kill)을 가했다. 이 명령은 남녀노소를 가리지 않았으며, 부상자나 숨어 있는 이들까지 확인 사살한 뒤 흙으로 묻어버리는 은폐 작업이 수반되었다.
강제 추방과 공포 전술: 이스라엘 군은 Palestinian들을 추방하기 위해 버스와 트럭을 동원해 강제로 태우거나, 확성기 방송 및 무기 위협을 가했다. 또한 시리아 접경 지역 등에서는 민간인 이탈을 유도하기 위해 무차별 사격을 가하고 밀밭을 불태워 잔류 주민을 굶기는 전술을 사용하였다. 이로 인해 약 30만 명 이상의 Palestinian이 삶의 터전을 잃고 쫓겨나는 <낙사>(Naksa)가 발생하였다.
이스라엘 사회의 침묵과 은폐: 군 내부에서 이러한 학살 행위를 인지하고 참모총장에게 조사를 요구한 정치인이 있었으나 언론에 공표하지 않고 침묵했다. 참전 군인들과 약탈에 가담한 대중, 토지를 차지한 키부츠 모두 입을 닫았으며, 정부 국가기록원 역시 외교적 파장을 이유로 관련 기밀문서의 공개를 철저히 차단해 왔다.

평론

본 자료는 1967년 제6일 전쟁을 지배해 온 이스라엘 중심의 <기적의 승리>라는 신화적 내러티브 이면에 숨겨진 피비린내 나는 폭력의 실상을 정면으로 고발한다. 다윗과 골리앗의 싸움이자 선과 악의 구도로 낭만화되었던 역사적 사건이, 실제로는 철저한 비인간화와 전쟁 범죄 위에서 구축된 비극이었음을 생생한 증언을 통해 입증하고 있다.

이 텍스트에서 가장 주목해야 할 지점은 구조적 폭력이 개인의 인간성을 어떻게 파괴하는가에 대한 묘사이다. 군인들의 증언 속에서 나타나는 <상대를 인간으로 보지 않게 되는 과정>이나, 아기 우음소리가 들려도 쏘아야 하느냐는 질문에 <여자처럼 굴지 마라>고 답하는 장교의 태도는 집단주의적 광기가 개인의 윤리의식을 어떻게 마비시키는지를 여실히 보여준다.

특히 흥미로운 부분은 역사적 기억의 교차와 비교이다. 피난길에 오른 Palestinian 노약자들의 행렬을 보며 군인 스스로가 과거 유럽에서 박해받던 유대인 가족의 모습을 떠올렸다는 고백은 지극히 역설적이다. 과거의 피해자가 새로운 권력 관계 속에서 가해자의 위치로 치환되는 역사의 비극성을 드러내기 때문이다. 홀로코스트라는 거대한 비극의 기억이 또 다른 형태의 억압과 정착민 식민주의적 영토 확장을 정당화하는 도구로 변질되었다는 게시물의 비판은 결코 가볍지 않다.

결국 이 자료가 던지는 핵심 질문은 <어떤 내러티브가 진실인가>이다. 국가와 군력 조직이 국가 안보와 외교적 이익이라는 명목 하에 진실을 수십 년간 봉인하고 대중이 이에 묵인할 때, 역사는 승자의 미화된 기록으로 전락한다. 참전 군인들과 언론의 내부 폭로는 단순한 과거의 들추기가 아니라, 현재까지 이어지고 있는 가자 지구 및 팔레스타인 전역의 군사적 억압과 비인간적 구조를 해체하기 위한 필수적인 성찰의 시작점으로 평가되어야 한다.

---

세진님, 공유해 주신 기사와 글은 역사를 바라볼 때 지배적인 서사에 의문을 제기하는 것이 얼마나 중요한지 다시금 생각하게 만듭니다.

===

Happily Made Village’s post — 요약+평론

이 자료는 1967년 6월전쟁, 곧 이스라엘이 말하는 “기적의 승리”와 팔레스타인인들이 기억하는 “1967년의 나크바” 사이의 기억 충돌을 다룬 짧은 게시물과 이미지 묶음이다. 게시물 작성자는 어린 시절 자신이 1967년 전쟁을 “작은 이스라엘이 거대한 적들을 물리친 정의로운 전쟁”으로 배웠다고 말한다. 서벽 앞에서 기도하는 병사들의 사진은 그에게 자부심과 신앙적 확신을 주었고, “하나님이 우리 편”이라는 서사를 강화했다. 그러나 시간이 지나면서 그는 이 승리 서사가 피와 추방, 민간인 살해, 난민화의 현실을 지워왔다는 사실을 깨닫게 되었다고 고백한다.

자료의 중심 질문은 2쪽 이미지에 나오는 “Which narrative is true?”이다. 즉, 1967년은 “방어전쟁의 승리”인가, 아니면 팔레스타인인들에게 또 하나의 재앙이었는가? 게시물은 둘 중 하나만 선택하라고 하지 않는다. 다만 이스라엘 국가서사가 의도적으로 감추거나 축소한 폭력의 기록을 드러내려 한다.

3쪽부터는 하아레츠 기사로 보이는 자료가 인용된다. 제목은 “우리는 살해 명령을 받았다: 이스라엘인들이 모르는 1967년 나크바”라는 취지다. 이어지는 페이지들에는 이스라엘 병사들의 증언이 나온다. 어떤 병사는 저항하지 않는 아랍인을 죽이는 것이 처음에는 꺼려졌지만, 시간이 지나면서 그들을 인간으로 보지 않게 되었다고 말한다. 또 다른 병사는 가자 난민캠프에서 사람들을 붙잡아 죽였고, 그들이 전투원이었는지 민간인이었는지 입증할 방법도 없었다고 말한다. 또 다른 증언은 살인의 충동과 스포츠적 쾌락의 충동을 구별하기 어렵다는 식의 끔찍한 자기고백까지 담고 있다.

6~10쪽은 전쟁 직후 팔레스타인 난민들이 서안으로 돌아오려 할 때 벌어진 총격과 살해를 다룬다. 이스라엘 병사들이 요르단강을 건너 귀환하려는 남녀노소를 야간에 사살했다는 증언이 나온다. 한 병사는 아기 울음소리가 들리면 어떻게 해야 하느냐고 묻자 “어린 여자아이도 아끼지 말라”는 답을 들었다고 회상한다. 또 시나이와 라파 등지에서 포로와 민간인이 살해된 사례, 문서가 공개되지 않은 채 이스라엘 군 기록보관소에 봉인되어 있다는 내용도 제시된다.

11~17쪽은 살해만이 아니라 추방과 영토 장악의 문제를 다룬다. 라트룬 지역의 마을 파괴, 주민 추방, 요르단강 서안과 골란고원에서의 위협·총격·식량 박탈·주민 이동 강요 등이 언급된다. 특히 어떤 이스라엘 예비군은 팔레스타인 난민들의 행렬을 보며 유럽에서 유대인 가족들이 끌려가던 장면을 떠올리지 않을 수 없었다고 썼다. 이 비교는 매우 강한 윤리적 충격을 준다. 피해자의 기억을 지닌 집단이 다른 집단에게 비슷한 추방의 경험을 안겨주었다는 점을 암시하기 때문이다.

<평론>

이 자료의 힘은 “반이스라엘 선전”이라는 단순한 틀보다, 이스라엘 내부의 기억 균열을 보여주는 데 있다. 작성자는 처음부터 팔레스타인 편에서 자란 사람이 아니다. 오히려 전형적인 시온주의적 승리 서사 속에서 성장한 사람이다. 그렇기 때문에 그의 고백은 더 중요하다. 그는 외부 비판자가 아니라, 자기 자신의 신화가 무너지는 과정을 말한다.

핵심은 1967년 전쟁을 둘러싼 “선과 악”의 단순 구도가 깨지는 지점이다. 이스라엘 사회에서는 1967년이 오랫동안 생존, 방어, 기적, 해방의 언어로 기억되었다. 그러나 팔레스타인인들에게 그것은 점령, 추방, 학살, 난민화의 기억이다. 이 자료는 두 기억이 단순히 “관점 차이”가 아니라 권력 차이 속에서 형성되었다고 말한다. 승자의 기억은 학교, 언론, 국가의례, 종교언어를 통해 반복되지만, 패자의 기억은 오랫동안 “과장”, “선전”, “테러의 배경” 정도로 밀려난다.

다만 이 자료는 감정적 호소가 강하다. “bloodbath”, “genocide”, “crimes against humanity” 같은 표현은 도덕적 분노를 전달하지만, 역사 분석으로서는 더 세밀한 구분이 필요하다. 1967년 전쟁 전체를 하나의 단어로 규정하기보다, 민간인 살해, 포로 처형, 강제 추방, 귀환 차단, 토지 장악, 기록 은폐 등을 각각 나누어 검토해야 한다. 그래야 비판의 힘이 약해지지 않는다. 너무 큰 단어를 먼저 쓰면, 반대자는 쉽게 “과장”이라고 반박할 수 있다.

그럼에도 이 자료의 윤리적 핵심은 분명하다. 한 사회가 자기 피해의 기억만 절대화하고, 자신이 다른 사람에게 가한 피해를 보지 못할 때, 피해자의 기억은 해방의 기억이 아니라 권력의 방패가 된다. 이 게시물은 바로 그 방패에 균열을 낸다.

한 줄로 정리하면, 이 자료는 <1967년 이스라엘의 승리 서사 뒤에 가려진 팔레스타인인의 추방과 살해의 기억을, 이스라엘 내부 증언을 통해 다시 드러내려는 기억정치적 고발문>이다.

===

Happily Made Village's post

Happily Made Village

ndpeotorsS 44ftc0u501e76h420gg9341Ju12 3n5af0142h2tt:26 6l3a

1967. 

59 years ago. 

Only  eight years before I was born. 

Something "miraculous" happened on June 7th. 

At least that's the story I grew up hearing. 

This tiiiiiiiiiny little nation called Israe|....defeated the giant. 

It was the story of David & Goliath in modern times. 

Good versus evil. 

The black & white photos of soldiers praying at the Western Wall filled me with deep pride. 

I completely believed that God was on our side.  If anyone needed proof...this was it. 

It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand that I have been raised with a narrative written in blood by a Jewish supremacist's hand. 

The blood of the people who lived on the land for centuries before 1967. 

It's too long to share the whole article, but I would really appreciate it if you could take the time to read through these snippets I've shared from an Israe|i newspaper exposing the crimes against humanity that we have rewritten in the history books as "miraculous". 

The "Six Day War" was a blood bath. 

Where every Pa|estinian was seen as a target. Infants to the elderly.

And of course their blood hasn't stopped flowing.

And we don't even need soldiers to hold guns anymore. We have drones and AI to do the slaughter for us. 

Since 1948 the Pa|estinian people have tried to tell us their story. Hardly anyone would listen. 

Instead we have amplified the zi0nist narrative that weaponised the Holocaust to justify a gen0cide.  

Those of us who want the bloodbath to end will be gathering tomorrow in memory of the "Naksa". When over 300,000 
Pa|estinians were displaced and many many slaughtered.  

If you believe that the bloodshed needs to stop...please join us. 

It's as uncomplicated as that. 

#history 

#narrative
#trauma
#holocaust
====

'We Were Ordered to Kill': The 1967 Nakba That Israelis Don't Know About
2026년 6월 4일
https://archive.is/GFb0B#selection-703.0-1709.90

Palestinian refugees fleeing villages captured in the Latrun area. The IDF expelled them, and the JNF built Canada Park over the ruins. Credit: Benia Ben-Nun
Unpublished testimonies from soldiers who fought in the Six-Day War expose a stark gap between Israel's collective memory and what actually happened in 1967. Newly uncovered documents indicate that 300,000 Arabs were expelled or displaced from the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights amid violence, looting and destruction | An investigation

Adam Raz
Follow11:26 PM • June 04 2026 IDT

"At first I wasn't willing to execute Arabs who weren't resisting," one soldier said. "Then we came to the conclusion that we had to kill. We went through the process of ceasing to see them as human beings."
A second soldier explained that in Gaza, "human lives didn't matter. You could kill, there was no law. No one would say a word to you, but it's not a good feeling. It mainly kills your humanity."
A third soldier recounted "punitive expeditions we would carry out in the minority villages in the Strip, not once or twice. We caught guys, lined them up and eliminated them. In retrospect, it looks like murder."
"We would roam through refugee camps in Gaza and carry out purges," a fourth soldier testified. "Every man we saw was a combatant, that's clear. No way to prove it. Maybe prisoners or civilians were the ones killed. Every soldier who was there created a 'concentration camp,' and they didn't hesitate to kill people who caused a slight disturbance."
"It's a philosophical debate," a fifth soldier said about the attempt to distinguish between "the urge to kill and the urge for sport."
These Israeli troops' testimonies, which never saw the light of day, emerged in a series of discussions held in kibbutzim after the Six-Day War. A selection of the conversations was compiled into a canonical book, "The Seventh Day: Soldiers' Talk about the Six-Day," but many harsh testimonies were left out. Mor Loushy's 2015 film, "Censored Voices," indeed exposed some of the crimes committed in 1967, but the vast majority remained on the cutting room floor.
"Out of 200 hours of recordings, a significant number of hours deal with war crimes," Loushy said upon the film's release. "The story came up in almost every kibbutz and repeated itself again and again. We included three or four testimonies about the killing of prisoners in the film."

'Terror was needed to make Arabs leave': What Israel's army did in '48, revealed | Adam Raz
The IDF admits it killed 70,000 Gazans. What other accusations might be true? | Nir Hasson
They were children during the Nakba. This is what they remember 78 years later | Nagham Zbeedat

A review of the full protocols, housed in the Yad Tabenkin Archive in Ramat Gan, reveals a striking gap between Israel's collective memory and what actually happened. These protocols, along with a series of documents published here for the first time, form the basis of a Haaretz investigation and research by the Akevot Institute into what transpired during and after the Six-Day War. The historical inquiry shows that Israel expelled and drove out some 300,000 Arabs from the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. And as in 1948, the expulsion included killing civilians, sowing terror in Arab communities, looting and ultimately, destruction.

Palestinian refugees at the the foothills of the Jerusalem Mountains. The documents show a wide gap between Israel's collective memory and what actually happened. Credit: Benia Ben-Nun

In the weeks following the war, thousands of Palestinian refugees sought to return to the West Bank after finding refuge east of the Jordan River. However, the Israel Defense Forces ambushed those returning and massacred them. The killing of Palestinians attempting to return was not widely publicized but reached the ears of Knesset Member Uri Avnery. A traumatized soldier who met with Avnery told him that he and his comrades were instructed to open fire even on women and children. After collecting testimony from another soldier, Avnery asked IDF Chief-of-Staff Yitzhak Rabin to open an investigation and order a halt to the killings.
Avnery did not publish the details in his newspaper, HaOlam HaZeh, nor did he speak about them from the Knesset podium. Like others, he too remained silent and waited five decades until he presented the testimony verbatim in his autobiography:
"Every night, Arabs would cross the Jordan from the East Bank to the West Bank. We blocked these crossings and received orders to shoot to kill, without prior warning. Indeed, such shots were fired every night at men, women and children, even on moonlit nights when it was possible to identify those crossing. That is, to distinguish between men and women and children. In the morning, we would go out to scan the area, and we would kill, by explicit order of the officer present, those who were alive, including those hiding and the wounded. After the killing was over, we would cover the bodies with dirt until a tractor arrived."
"They explained to us that if convoys of refugees returning from Jordan to the West Bank passed by us, we had to shoot them," another soldier testified. "I asked the officer: And if I hear babies crying, should I shoot then too? The answer I received was: Don't be a girl."
Maj. Gen Uzi Narkiss, the head of the army's Central Command during the war, later admitted that the troops were instructed to shoot to kill those returning if they did not know the password. And how would Palestinian refugees know which password would save them from death?
"Sometimes there are guys who exaggerate in their behavior and instead of asking for a password, they immediately shoot," Narkiss told the Koteret Rashit newspaper in 1985. "When there's a war, tragic things happen."
The IDF itself reported that by early September, nearly 150 Palestinians had been killed in this manner, and Chief-of-Staff Rabin also confirmed to the Ministerial Committee for Security Affairs that these were the orders regarding "infiltrators." These orders aligned with the government's decision on June 25 to prevent the return of refugees who had crossed the Jordan River eastward.

A soldier's testimony collected by MK Uri Avnery. "We received orders to shoot to kill, without prior warning."
Back to the Soldiers' Talk testimonies. "Suppose we have to treat Arabs this way," one of the soldiers said, "the question is whether this doesn't undermine a very large moral ground for all the things we say among ourselves. I'm not a big vegetarian, but this kind of killing, it must have consequences later in our lives."
He then told of a "Jordanian boy" who stood for a long time by the side of the road in a group, until soldiers "sprayed him with bullets and told me with complete enthusiasm that they had finished them off." He also reported a large "harvest" that had been carried out elsewhere, but did not elaborate on it.
Another participant in the conversation compared the behavior of regular soldiers to that of reservists. "Regular soldiers kill much more easily. The regulars do terrible things. They carried out actual murders, shot prisoners even when they had their hands up." He added that he was present at the execution of "some 15 guys" who were unarmed.
The occupation of the territories did not catch Israel unprepared, as a mere byproduct of battlefield achievements. On the contrary, the state planned for it, documents show.
Testimonies of this kind appear in the transcripts again and again. One soldier recounted witnessing "cases that severely shocked me, of executions and such things." A reservist spoke of explicit orders to execute Palestinians taken captive: "It wasn't a trial, but an officer from the military government, from intelligence, I don't know exactly from where? He would go through and check IDs and say: 'This one needs to be executed,' with no hesitation."
The murders were not always intended to expedite expulsion or dispose of prisoners. One soldier recounted an incident that occurred in northern Sinai, at Bardawil Lake. The soldier and his comrades encountered seven Arabs, clearly civilians, sitting on a small sailboat. According to him, a nurse who accompanied them "immediately got excited" and suggested sniping them from a distance. "Quick, they're Arabs!" she warned the fighters. Part of the force cocked their weapons, and the soldier naively thought "the guys were joking." When he realized they were serious, he yelled at the officer: "You won't shoot, do you hear?" But the officer replied that he didn't take orders from him. "The first burst of fire went out, and immediately all the others joined in and made it a real shooting range," he continued in his testimony. The occupants of the boat jumped into the water wounded, "and out of mercy, I told someone, 'Come on, just shoot them already.'"
"We turned the Sinai Peninsula into a killing field," another soldier wrote to his girlfriend, recounting that people were executed even if they were unarmed, and that this happened both to captured soldiers and civilians. "I saw too many murders to cry."
This was not an aberration. In one of the most shocking cases where prisoners were executed, the order was given by Moshe Levy, a staff officer in the Paratroopers. Levy was later appointed chief of staff.
Some of the cases remain hidden from the Israeli public to this day, although most of their details have been published abroad. This was the case with Moshe Levy and the killing of prisoners, and also with testimonies about the killing of four civilians in Rafah after the fighting ended. A document obtained by Haaretz shows that even in 2008, four decades later, State Archivist Yehoshua Freundlich recommended keeping "the file concerning an incident that occurred in Rafah after the Six-Day War" closed, arguing that "its exposure could cause severe damage to Israel's foreign relations." The material on the affair remains sealed in the IDF Archive to this day.

Testimony of residents of Kibbutz Nahshon, as told to researchers from the Akevot Institute.

The euphoria that followed Israel's swift victory in the Six-Day War obscured the Nakba of 1967. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, some 200,000 Palestinians were driven out, many of them residents of refugee camps who had already been expelled from their homes two decades earlier. Arab communities along the Green Line were destroyed to blur the border between Israel and Jordan. From the Golan Heights, some 120,000 Syrian citizens were driven out, and their return to their homes was forbidden after the fighting subsided. Their communities were systematically looted by the state. In some cases, private looting initiatives preceded the state-organized looting.
Documents opened for review in archives in recent years and revealed by the Akevot Institute indicate that the IDF engaged in meticulous preparations for the "conquest of areas outside the state's borders" as early as the beginning of the 1960s. The army hoped that the political situation would play into Israel's hands and allow it to hold the occupied territory for a prolonged period, estimating that in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and northern Sinai, "there might be a need for a prolonged military government, in accordance with diplomatic trends." The occupation of the territories did not catch Israel unprepared, as a mere byproduct of battlefield achievements. On the contrary, the state planned for it.
The Palestinians were mere bystanders in this story. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan wrote in his memoirs that the Palestinians residing in the West Bank did not take part in the war, and that it was not their war. Nevertheless, they were the ones who paid its price.
The Israeli public, for its part, remained silent. Troops who participated in committing crimes kept their mouths shut; a large public that looted and stole property did not want to boast about it; kibbutzim that took part in expelling Palestinians and seizing their property sought to downplay their actions. Amos Kenan, then a reservist who served in Latrun, was among the few who openly protested the expulsion and destruction of the villages, writing a report on the acts of destruction to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol.
However, Israel's leaders were not merely dragged along by the military echelon. More than once, they signaled to the army with a wink their desire for the expulsion of the Arab population. "We also want to clear out a bit from the Gaza Strip," Moshe Dayan said at a ministerial meeting in July 1967, according to a document opened for review a few years ago. Labor Minister Yigal Allon expressed a similar sentiment. At a meeting of the Ministerial Committee for Security Affairs, Allon said that "there is no need to be sorry over a few villages that were destroyed." This was not merely a retrospective reflection. The work of expulsion was then in full swing.
Information Minister Yisrael Galili said at a cabinet meeting that "no amount of public relations would fix" what he saw during a visit to the West Bank. He added that "our main thesis was that we faced a danger of annihilation. This thesis has diminished in value to a minimum."
The expulsion, as Ishai Amrami, deputy commander of a battalion that fought in the Six-Day War, later put it, was planned. Amrami participated in 1987 in a gathering of Mapam party activists marking 20 years since the publication of the "Soldiers' Talk" book. The activists and former soldiers, now in their fifties, looked back at the events of the war from a distance. "This thing, which I experienced firsthand, was an attempt at massive population transfer," Amrami recalled. "Not a simple expulsion like that, but transportation by buses. This is something that remains etched in my memory to this very day. I don't know all the details, but it was clear that such a move was being carried out."
Information Minister Yisrael Galili said at a cabinet meeting that "no amount of public relations would fix" what he saw during a visit to the West Bank: "Our main thesis was that we faced a danger of annihilation. This thesis has diminished to a minimum."
And yet, the question must be asked – who gave the order? Some 200,000 Palestinians sought refuge east of the Jordan River, and we have no documentation of a government decision on the matter, although it is clear that ministers welcomed the flight.
The two key figures are likely Defense Minister Dayan and Central Command chief Narkiss. On June 7, Dayan made it clear to Chief-of-Staff Rabin that he wished to empty the West Bank of its inhabitants. Throughout those days, he repeatedly expressed his satisfaction with reports of the expulsion and departure of Arab residents. For example, when he learned of the initial flight of residents from the city of Tulkarm, where 25,000 people lived, he ordered a slowdown in the advance of armored forces to the area and demanded that traffic routes remain open to facilitate the residents' escape.
In government discussions, Dayan avoided speaking in definitive terms, and it appears this helped him mislead some of the ministers. Mordechai Bentov, housing minister on behalf of Mapam, later said that to his knowledge, most of the expulsion initiatives were local, and the large expulsions of 1948 did not repeat themselves because, as far as he knew, there was no order from above. "I don't think so," he said with some hesitation in a 1976 interview, "as far as I know. I know they fled."
The truth was more complex. Maj.-Gen. Narkiss fully understood Dayan's intentions and acted decisively to expel communities along the Green Line. More than once, in places where Palestinians did not flee on their own initiative, they were ordered to do so. Evidence from the Palestinian side supports evidence from the Israeli side. For example, it emerges from the testimony of a resident of the village of Yalo in the foothills of the Jerusalem Mountains, preserved in the archive of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq: "The Israelis are in the village, announcing through loudspeakers. All residents of Yalo must leave for Ramallah. Those who do not leave will be in danger."

A Palestinian family from the Latrun area leaving their home in front of soldiers. A deputy battalion commander who took part in the war later testified that he witnessed "an attempt at massive population transfer, not a simple expulsion." Credit: Benia Ben-Nun
Various practices to encourage expulsion were employed in different places: announcements; threatening residents with weapons; lining up buses and trucks and ordering the population to board them. This was the case, among others, in Qalqilyah, the Latrun villages, Tulkarm and the South Hebron Hills. In other places in the West Bank, Air Force bombings carried out as part of the fighting contributed to the intimidation. These bombings helped drive out some 50,000 residents living in three refugee camps in the Jericho area. Many of those who fled carried the memories of the Nakba and did not wait for the arrival of ground forces.
In some cases, there was an apparent attempt to create the impression that the expulsion or flight was the result of local initiatives. An archival document preserved at Yad Tabenkin and now revealed here sheds light on the attempt to expel the residents of Qalqilyah, while covering its tracks. In the document, Yaakov Mali, head of the Egged bus company's traffic department during the war, testified that the person who tried to carry out the expulsion was actually Kfar Sava Mayor Ze'ev Geller. "He ordered 40 buses from me to expel the residents of Qalqilyah to the Jordan crossings," Mali recounted, testifying that he replied he only accepted orders from the IDF. Geller responded that there was "a historic opportunity to get rid of as many Arabs as possible and that at that very moment, the IDF was blowing up houses in Qalqilyah." The buses were sent. Geller was indeed the face, but the order to expel came from Dayan and passed to Narkiss.
The expulsion of Qalqilyah was carried out swiftly, and nearly half the homes were destroyed within a few days. However, this was one of the rare instances in the history of the conflict where Israel was forced to back down due to heavy international pressure. On June 25, it was decided to allow the residents of Qalqilyah to return to their city.
The expulsion of the three Palestinian villages in the Latrun area – Imwas, Bayt Nuba, and Yalo – with their 8,000 residents, was one of the most prominent expulsions during the war. So too was the destruction of the villages immediately afterward and the establishment of Canada Park by the Jewish National Fund in 1971. The villages were captured without resistance on the second day of the war, and hours later, residents were ordered to evacuate to Ramallah. Israel claimed that a significant portion of the structures in the villages were destroyed during the battles that took place there. This was a false claim.
Ze'ev Bloch, a Six-Day War veteran and a former member of Kibbutz Nahshon, located near the three expelled villages, told Akevot Institute researchers that "no one leaves their home willingly. There's no debate about that. Certainly, certainly they were expelled. War. There are those who expel them, there are those who leave, there are those who survive, and there are those who die."
"The expulsions constitute a serious violation of the Geneva Convention," the Foreign Ministry's legal adviser wrote. A sentence he added sums up the history of the conflict: "The Ministerial Committee for Security Affairs nevertheless decided to approve the policy."
In his memoirs, he described "crying children, adults and elderly people slowly trudging along the sides of the road. These sights reminded me and many of the reservists then of other, not-so-distant days, when Jewish families were seen trudging in exactly the same way in occupied Europe. It was difficult to avoid the comparison, and our hearts ached at these sights."
The emptying of many towns and villages left behind much property. Members of Kibbutz Nahshon held meetings about the fate of the lands and property left abandoned. Transcripts of the conversations were printed in the kibbutz's newsletter, but it was ultimately decided that they should not see the light of day. According to a note written at the time by the kibbutz archivist, "it was decided that no property or spoils should be taken from the nearby villages."
However, looting spread throughout the country, and some in the government wondered how to stem it. Justice Minister Yaakov Shimshon Shapira explained at a cabinet meeting at the end of June that "the biggest problem" was that citizens were looting and returning to Israel, "and here it's impossible to arrest them and put them on trial."
One of the most prominent looting incidents occurred in Qalqilyah. Cars and trucks made their way from the emptied city to private homes in Kfar Sava and the surrounding area. Some of the property was looted in an organized manner. In the Kfar Sava municipal archive, one can find a long list of equipment taken from schools in Qalqilyah and transferred for the benefit of students in schools in the Israeli city. The person who organized the theft was Mayor Geller, who was also appointed governor of Qalqilyah for a short period.

IDF forces in Quneitra. The commander who captured the Golan Heights testified to a decision to raze villages "so there would be nowhere to return." Credit: Moshe Milner/GPO
Expulsion and destruction operations along the Green Line continued even after the war. This was the case, for example, in Zeita near Tulkarm and Beit Awwa south of Hebron. The systematic nature of the evacuation of villages along the Green Line supports the conclusion that these were not local initiatives. Maj.-Gen. Narkiss himself publicly boasted that he played a central role in the expulsion of the population. Even before the war, he informed his subordinates that if Jordan joined the fighting, "we would sweep all the Arabs out of the West Bank." He promised and delivered, at least partially. After the war, he admitted that some of the expulsion operations he initiated were acts of revenge. Although Chief-of-Staff Rabin ordered him to stop the expulsion and even threatened a legal investigation, Narkiss enjoyed the backing of Dayan, who pushed to establish facts on the ground.
In December 1967, six months after the war, the Foreign Ministry's legal adviser, Theodor Meron, sent a letter to the ministry's director general concerning "expulsions of Arabs to the East Bank." This dramatic letter, published here for the first time, serves as evidence that government ministers were involved in the expulsions. Dayan was not a rogue, freewheeling actor in this matter.
"The expulsions constitute a serious violation of the Geneva Convention," Meron wrote, "and especially in light of the extensive publicity, they are likely to cause complications." He added that Military Advocate General Meir Shamgar also agreed "that the expulsions violate the Convention." One sentence he wrote succinctly sums up the history of the conflict: "The Ministerial Committee for Security Affairs nevertheless decided to approve the policy."

This grim historical chapter did not remain entirely secret. Over the years, the facts gradually came to light through historical research, journalistic investigations and documentary films. In 2005, Tom Segev's comprehensive book "1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East" revealed a glimpse of the expulsion operations carried out during the war. In 2012, a richly detail study by historian Avi Raz, "The Bride and the Dowry," was published, including a fascinating chapter on the authorization, granted through convoluted means, that allowed the forces to expel residents and destroy villages. Last year, historian Omri Shafer Raviv published his illuminating book "The Landlords: The Israeli Government and the Palestinians 1967-1969" (in Hebrew), in which he described Israeli policy to reduce the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip after the war.
And there were also those who shed light on the great expulsion in the Golan Heights. In 2010, a Haaretz investigation by Shay Fogelman extensively covered the operation to empty the plateau of its Syrian residents. Now, documents obtained by Haaretz and the Akevot Institute allow for unknown aspects of the operation to be illuminated.
A diplomatic adviser to Foreign Minister Abba Eban wrote that "the expulsion of Quneitra's Arabs prompts repeated complaints from the Red Cross." He suggested that "if there is no alternative, it is better to get rid of the problem at once in the most humane way possible."
First came the occupation. After three days of heavy shelling, the IDF gained full control of the Syrian plateau. A systematic registration of the remaining residents in the Golan Heights was not carried out until mid-August, when it became clear that their number stood at just over 6,000 – out of some 130,000 Syrian citizens who had lived on the plateau until the war. Immediately after the occupation, a curfew was imposed on some of the remaining residents, and the return of villagers who had hidden in the area during the fighting was forcibly prevented. A document preserved at the Yitzhak Rabin Center presents the testimony of Elad Peled, commander of the IDF's Ga'ash Formation that led the occupation. According to Peled, a few days after the end of the war, a decision was made to come in "with bulldozers to eliminate the villages, so there would be nowhere to return." This was indeed done.
In mid-June, the commander of Israeli forces in the occupied city of Quneitra asked the representative of the Military Advocate General's Office if he was authorized "to forcibly remove residents who had arrived in the city, and if residents could be transported by bus to Syrian territory." A Northern Command report stated that from June 11, "the military government began to deal with the population remaining in the occupied territory, with an emphasis on the Druze and Circassian minorities." The rest of the sentence was censored. Further in the report, it was stated that "the concentration of residents remaining in Quneitra began, and severe measures were taken regarding looting." Nothing further was written, and generally, the IDF Archive does not open documents on expulsion operations for review.
About a month after the end of the war, the Israeli liaison officer at the UN contacted Northern Command following a long series of detailed accusations Syria had presented against Israel, requesting its response. "Intimidation through threats against village residents reached such proportions that most of the population left their homes and fled," stated the report submitted to the UN. In some villages, only elderly residents who struggled to endure the flight remained. According to the report, the intimidation and threats manifested in various forms: shooting intended to cause flight; "general shootings, neglect of the dead, and expulsion of the rest of the population"; and "starving the remaining residents by burning wheat fields." In one case, residents were divided into two groups – those under 25 were captured and taken to Israel, and the rest were expelled to southern Syria with their hands tied behind their backs.
Amnon Assaf, a member of Kibbutz Ma'ayan Baruch, recounted in Fogelman's investigation that he witnessed the gathering of hundreds of Syrian citizens, and that Israeli soldiers told him they were about to expel them. "I am not a soft-hearted man, but at that very moment, I felt that something was wrong here," Assaf said. "I remember to this day that even then, this scene made a bad impression on me. It's like what happened in Lod, Ramle and other places during the War of Independence."

Israeli forces in Quneitra. After the war, Syria lodged detailed accusations against Israel at the UN: "Intimidation through threats against villagers reached such proportions that most fled their homes." Credit: Moshe Milner/GPO
Concurrently with the expulsion operations, Israeli forces engaged in seizing property left behind. "Robbery and looting continue incessantly," stated the Syrian complaint to the UN. "Searches focus on women's jewelry, gold and television sets. Every shop in Quneitra was looted. Most homes were looted, and even furniture that appealed to the invaders was not left behind and was transported to occupied Palestine by trucks."
There is no shortage of soldiers' testimonies supporting the Syrian complaint. "You enter to clear a house, and your eyes are naturally drawn to the other details," one soldier recounted in a censored testimony from Soldiers' Talk. "Sometimes the guys would shoot at televisions out of frustration." Frustration over what? "If I don't take it, someone else will, and that will be the Military Police, so it's better to destroy it."
Additional documents forming the basis of this investigation were found in the Red Cross archive in Geneva. Israel tried to restrict the organization's activities but did not succeed in completely removing it. An observer who visited the Golan Heights in mid-July described scenes of widespread destruction and looting: bedding had been burned, contents scattered in chaos, roofs destroyed and the charred remains of furniture left behind.
Red Cross personnel also referred in their reports to the burning of crops, which, according to Syria, was intended to starve the remaining residents. Overall, it was clear that the observers understood what they were seeing. One of them wrote that the accompanying IDF representative sought to frame the situation as people going into Syria to search for their relatives and bring them back, but the observers dismissed this as implausible; the sergeant smiled and appeared to agree.
Unlike in 1948, this time the expulsion of Arabs was extensively covered in the international media. Israeli reports also appeared occasionally. Five months after the war, activist and journalist Joseph Algazy published an article that had been partially censored. According to Algazy, who published the article with the censor's markings, hundreds of thousands of people were expelled from the beginning of the war from the Golan Heights the West Bank, and Gaza: "Indeed, some were uprooted by 'choice,' meaning out of fear of gunfire, shelling and other dangers, but the rest were uprooted, literally, by the terror of the Uzi barrel and explosive devices."
Col. Shlomo Gazit, appointed by the General Staff to oversee the military government in the occupied territories, argued in March 1968 "that under no circumstances should we call the voluntary migration of Syrians to Syrian territory an expulsion." In internal correspondence, Israeli officials used the word "expulsion" without difficulty. Michael Comay, diplomatic adviser to Foreign Minister Abba Eban, wrote in an internal correspondence from mid-1968 that "the expulsion of Quneitra's Arabs, which has been ongoing for several months, prompts repeated complaints and inquiries from the Red Cross." He suggested a preferred course of action: "It seems to us that if there is no alternative, it is better to get rid of the problem at once in the most humane way possible."
Director Netalie Braun, in her film "Shooting," released last year, presents the testimony of a resident of the abandoned village of Mansura, which was located near where Kibbutz Merom Golan stands today: "Most of the people in the village were scared and fled toward Damascus. Only about a quarter of the village residents remained. Grandma was already old and had a leg problem, so we stayed. We thought the Jews would leave the Golan Heights soon. Many of the men who left managed to infiltrate back into their homes and gather the scattered animals, but it was dangerous because the Israeli army shot anyone who tried to return. From those who fled, they took everything; we saw them loading things onto tractors. I'm ashamed to say that we saw and did nothing out of fear. And I remember the thoughts that ran through my head: What will remain of everything I knew? Where will my home be?"
Israel did not allow anyone to return and declared a military government. Within a few months, Jewish settlers began to build their homes in the newly conquered territory.
Adam Raz is a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research

===
-

Jeremy Bradley

I can't imagine how you feel when you realise that the people who you actually grew up with carried out these atrocities.

I think that this truth, as with the truth about Australia's holocaust, must be told.

I grew up, in Australia, in the 1950s, on the mythology of Israel's noble cause and its triumphs over nature and overwhelming odds.

I wonder if we will ever convince our nations to embrace our histories.

Neil White

There simply can’t be a two state solution; Israel plainly cannot coexist. There must be one free Palestine. There can also never be justice or revenge; Israel’s colonial crimes are too monstrous to adequately punish, the executioner who enacted such justice as Israel has earned would become the monster of the next age. We must find a way to turn the hearts of Zionists from this darkness. You, Veronica, have managed to make that turn, and are an inspiration to us all.

Rosemary Anne Berrell

A few interesting facts I read other day.

During Johnson’s term as President of USA, not only did he have ‘problems’ with the Vietnam War (or what the Vietnamese called it the ‘American War’), he also had other ‘problems’ in the Middle East.

1967:

June 5 1967. Israeli Air Force, struck the first blow to start what would become known as the Six Day War. Its Air Force ‘demolished most of Egypt’s planes’, ‘left its airfield inoperative’, turned against the Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi airforce’.

After a ‘Hot Line’ from Soviet Premier to Johnson, ‘Israeli tanks and infantry columns were already into marching into the Sinai, seizing the Golan Height, and capturing from Jordan the West Bank and Jerusalem.

‘By morning of June 7, Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen had broken relations with the United States and Britain. But Nasser was unable to bring the moderate Arab states along with him - relations were preserved between the United States and Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia.

‘Israel had won a stunning victory. When she accepted a cease-fire on June 10 (giving the conflict its name, the Six Day War), Israel had conquered all of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and the Gaza Strip, driven twelve miles into Syria, seizing the Golan Heights, and taken over all of Jerusalem plus the West Bank of the Jordan River.

‘Israel now occupied territory that was indisputably Arab (Sinai has been an integral part of Egypt for more than five thousand years)’

‘Thus the two main results of the Six Day War, which most Israelis and Americans interpreted as a great victory for Israel, were Israeli occupation of Arab national territory and the creation of a fully developed, and fanatic, Palestinian nationalism. The Arabs could not rest until they had their territory back, and the Palestinians would not rest until they had their own national state.’

Extracts from ‘Rise To Globalism’ Stephen E. Ambrose

Does this all sound similar to what is happening today?

Seno Phronic

Happily Made Village

Its also known as naksa the continuition of nakba

Chip O'Shaughnessy

by author

Hoping many join you, may many see and learn.

May they listen and not walk by.

Vicky Abrahams

by author

I feel completely sick reading this. It has been going on so long and each generation becomes more and more inhuman and the world just looks on

Laura Evans

by author

Penny Wong - Senator for SA

Anthony Albanese

Every day, Israel continues to commit war crimes.

Marieanne Scoparia

by author

I’m old enough to remember this being on the news and my parents being distressed about it. My dad spent much of WWII in Syria (British army) and, whenever there was mention of Israeli atrocities, he would say “We betrayed the Palestinians “.