Kfar Etzion Massacre - Aftermath

Aftermath

On October 28, 1948, the Arab village al-Dawayima was conquered by the IDF 89th Commando Battalion. The Al-Dawayima massacre then took place, as the villagers were blamed for the Kfar Etzion massacre. Estimates of the number of murdered Arab villagers range from 80–100 to 100–200, depending on the source.

The bodies of the murdered of Kfar Etzion were left at the site for a year and a half, until in November 1949, the Chief Military Rabbi, Shlomo Goren was allowed to collect their bones. They were buried in a full military funeral on November 17 in Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Their communal grave was the first grave in what is today the military cemetery of Mount Herzl.

The Etzion Bloc became a symbol of Zionist heroism and martyrdom among Israelis immediately after its fall, and this importance continues. The date of the massacre was enshrined as Israel's Day of Remembrance.

The site of the Etzion Bloc was recaptured by Israel during the 1967 war. The children who had been evacuated from the Bloc in 1948 led a public campaign for the Bloc to be resettled, and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol gave his approval. Kfar Etzion was re-established as a kibbutz in September 1967, as the first Israeli settlement in the West Bank after the war.