On May 15, 1948, the day the British Mandate over Palestine ended, the armies of five neighboring Arab states invaded the new State of Israel
Fahim Zaydan a 12-year-old kid who recalls seeing his family killed before his eyes in Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948…
They took us out one after the other; shot an old man and when one of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muhammad, and shot him in front us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him – carrying my little sister Hudra in her hands, still breastfeeding her – they shot her too
Ok, maybe some will say that Deir Yassin happened by accident, and that it was just an isolated incident and not part of a plan…
These operations can be carried out in the following manner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris) and especially of those population centers which are difficult to control continuously; or by mounting combing and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.
Plan Dalet, 10 March, 1948
If the war will be taken to your place, it will cause massive expulsion of the villagers, with their wives and their children. Those of you who do not wish to come to such a fate, I will tell them: in this war there will be merciless killing, no compassion.
Threatening leaflets distributed by the IDF warning the population in April 1948. (Source: IDF Archives)