Al-Kabri incident


The al-Kabri incident, or Al-Kabri massacre, refers to a military operation carried out by the Israeli army during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War in retaliation for the ambush of the Yehiam convoy. On May 20, 1948, the Israeli Carmeli Brigade captured al-Kabri, a Palestinian Arab village in the northwest corner of the region of the British Mandate of Palestine that was later incorporated into the State of Israel. On March 27, 1948, hundreds of armed villagers and units of the Arab Liberation Army attacked a Jewish convoy near the village, killing forty-nine Jews. Six Arabs were also killed in the battle. Two months later the commander of Operation Ben-Ami gave operational orders given that day were to "attack with the aim of capturing, the villages of Kabri, Umm al Faraj and Al-Nahr, to kill the men to destroy and set fire to the villages." Benvenisti states that "the orders were carried out to the letter", while Morris writes that a number of villagers were apparently executed.
Al-Kabri was captured without any resistance and it was almost immediately depopulated. It was treated particularly harshly due to the villagers involvement with the destruction of the Jewish convoy. According to Walid Khalidi, an 'undisclosed number of villagers were taken prisoner and some were killed' and others were killed during their dispersal in Galilee when it was discovered that they had come from al-Kabri.

Published Accounts of the Incident

According to a Palestinian publication, Dov Yirmiya, who was company commander in the 21st battalion, reported:
Aminah Muhammad Musa, a female refugee from al-Kabri, reported: