Hunin Village
Commentary and Translation by Prof. Ilan Pappé
The document here is from early September 1948.
Its title: Operation Order number 2
From: Carmel Brigade
Battalion 23
To: Various unites in the Battalion
File number: SD45/1088
2 September 1948.
Historical Context: Remember the ethnic cleaning by the Zionist forces had several stages. The first stage between February 1948 and 15 May 1948, it targeted the urban centers of Palestine (all towns apart from al-Lid, al-Ramlah and Nazareth) were cleansed and many villages around them.
15 May-9 June: Arab armies tried to stop the operations with little success.
11 June- 7 July: The first Truce, many more villages were cleaned in various parts of Palestine, apart from the north and the south.
8 July-18 July, ten days which saw the cleansing of al-Lid, al-Ramlah and the occupation of Nazareth. Many more villages in the areas that had already been occupied were driven out and destroyed.
19 July- 1 December 1948. Eastern, northern and southern Palestine are occupied, and the inhabitants are driven out by force, which included atrocities and massacres, some Zionist leftist described as the acts of Nazis.
The village: one of seven villages in which a Shiite community lived (known as the Mutawallis) who lived there for centuries. All the villages were cleaned in the Nakba. Hunin was already attacked in April and most of the people were expelled. They returned and dispatched message to the Zionist forces that they had no wish to take part in any fighting. This was in August 1948. The Israeli response was another raid on the village, by the Oded Brigade. Its soldiers raped and murdered four of the women from the village.
One of the Zionist leaders, the only Arab Jew in the Israeli government, Bechor Shitrit, promised them they could stay. This was in August. A month later the were attacked by the army, massacred and although few remained in the village it was finally destroyed in the end of October 1948.
This is the order from September. Similar to Dir Yasin and other cases. Any attempt by villagers to state their peaceful intentions or their willingness to live under Israeli sovereignty, was futile. In many cases, like these, they were doomed whether they resisted or not.
1. Enemy: The Village of Hunin was evicted during fire exchange around Manara (a Jewish colony in the upper Galilee), it is possible that its people returned in the meantime.
2. Our forces: Platoon G
Two units of Sappers from the Auxiliary Platoon [and some more details like this]
3. The Target: to break into the village Hunin, to kill a number of men, to take other captives, to blow some of the villages Houses and burn everything this flammable [literally that can be burnt].
In the rest of the document it is noted that the sappers would carry with them 250 kilos of TNT.
In reality, “a number of men” was twenty; “some of the houses”, was twenty houses and the mosque.
More details. Hunin was one the Palestinian villages with the most beautiful view in the country. It was located 670 meters above see level, overlooking the Hula Valley and the Snowy tips of Jabal al-Shaykh and the Golan Heights. The Crusaders fancied the place and built a castle there. It had about 1000 people living in it in 1948 – all of them in stone houses. Today a Jewish settlement, Margaliot, lies on the ruins of the village. On part of the villages’ lands, Kibbutz Misgav ‘Am has been built.