Al-Dawayima Massacre - The UN Inspection Team

The UN Inspection Team

Yigal Allon cabled General Yitzhak Sadeh to check "the 'rumours' that the 89th Battilion had 'killed many tens of prisoners on the day of the conquest of al-Dawayima', and to respond". On the 5 November probably worried about a UN investigation Allon then ordered Sadeh to instruct the unit:

that is accused of murdering Arab civilians at Dawayima to go to the village and bury with their own hands the corpses of those murdered.

Although unbeknownst to Allon, the 89th had cleaned up the site of the massacre on 1 November 1948.

On 7 November, UN inspectors visited the scene of the village to investigate accusations of a massacre, the accusation being made by the Egyptians and refugees from the village. The team found "several demolished buildings and one corpse but no other physical evidence of a massacre". The UN team did however take a witness statement from the village mukhtar

Isser Be'eri, the commander of the IDF intelligence service, who conducted an independent investigation, concluded that 80 people had been killed during the occupation of Al-Dawayima and that 22 had been captured and executed subsequently. Be'eri recommended prosecution of the platoon OC, who had confessed to the massacre, but notwithstanding his recommendations no one was put on trial or punished.

On 14 November the Israeli cabinet instructed Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to also launch an investigation. Its findings remain secret.