Qibya Massacre - The Attack

The Attack

According to the Mixed Armistice Commission report, approved on the afternoon immediately following the operation, and delivered by Major General Vagn Bennike to the UN Security Council, the raid at Qibya took place on the evening of October 14, 1953 at around 9.30 pm, and was taken by roughly half a battalion strength of soldiers from the Israeli regular army. Later sources state the force consisted of 130 IDF troops of whom a third came from Unit 101. The American chairman of the Mixed Armistice Commission in his report to the UN Security Council estimated that between 250 and 300 Israeli soldiers were involved in the attack.

The attack began with a mortar barrage on the village until Israeli forces reached the outskirts of the village. Israeli troops employed Bangalore torpedoes to breach the barbed-wire fences surrounding the village, and mined roads to prevent Jordanian forces from intervening. At the same time at least 25 mortar shells were fired into the neighbouring village of Budrus. As the Israelis approached the village, residents were seen fleeing, and it was incorrectly assumed that all villagers had fled. The Israeli troops simultaneously entered the village from three sides. IDF soldiers encountered resistance, and killed 10-12 soldiers and guards defending the village. An Israeli soldier was lightly wounded. Soldiers shouted warnings into homes and chased away any civilians who were discovered, but did not thoroughly inspect them. Many civilians remained in their homes and hid, and were not seen by the soldiers. Military engineers then dynamited dozens of buildings across the village,. At dawn, the operation was considered complete, and the Israelis returned home.

Ariel Sharon, who led the attack, later wrote in his diary that he had received orders to inflict heavy damage on the Arab Legion forces in Qibya: 'The orders were utterly clear: Qibya was to be an example for everyone'. Sharon said that he had thought the houses were empty and that the unit had checked all houses before detonating the explosives. In his autobiography Warrior (1987) he wrote:

I couldn't believe my ears. As I went back over each step of the operation, I began to understand what must have happened. For years Israeli reprisal raids had never succeeded in doing more than blowing up a few outlying buildings, if that. Expecting the same, some Arab families must have stayed in their houses rather than running away. In those big stone houses some could easily have hidden in the cellars and back rooms, keeping quiet when the paratroopers went in to check and yell out a warning. The result was this tragedy that had happened.

UN observers noted that they saw bodies near doorways, and bullet hits on the doors of demolished houses, and concluded that residents may have been forced to stay in their homes due to heavy fire.

Original documents of the time showed that Sharon personally ordered his troops to achieve "maximal killing and damage to property". Post-operational reports speak of breaking into houses and clearing them with grenades and shooting.