29 October 1948, the following is the testimony of a soldier who participated in the occupation of the village of Dawayma (in the Haifa subdistrict):
".. They killed between 80 to 100 Arab men women and children. To kill children they factured their heads with sticks. Threre was not one home left without corpses .... One commander ordered a soldier to bring two women into a building he was about to blow up... Another soldier prided himself on having raped an Arab women before shooting her to death...".
The massacre was perpetrated by the 89th Battalion, the authors of Lydda massacre.
29 October 1956: Israeli Border guards (Ha-Mishmar Gvool) started at 4:00 PM what they called a tour of the Triangle Villages. They told the Mukhtars (Aldermen) of those villages that the curfew from that day onwards was to start from 5:00 PM instead of the usual 6:00 PM. They reached Kafr Qasem around 4:45 PM and informed the Mukhtar (Alderman) who protested that there are about 400 villagers working outside the village and there is not enough time to inform them of the new times. An officer assured him that they will be taken care of. Then the guards waited at the entrance to the village. Forty nine of Kafr Qasem inhabitants - including 7 children and 9 women - were massacred in cold blood by the army as they returned from work. Their crime was violating a curfew they did not know about. On the northern entrance of the village, 3 more were killed and 2 were killed inside of the village. The Israeli Lieutenant Danhan was touring the area in his jeep reporting the massacre, on his wireless he said "minus 15 Arabs" after a while his message on the radio to his H.Q. was "it is difficult to count".
Where the soldiers brought to trial ?
- All Israeli officers directly involved in the killings were released from jail less than 3 years after the massacre!
- Brigadier Yishishkar Shadmi, the man who commanded the killings, was found guilty of a "merely technical" error! He was sentenced to a reprimand and a fine of one Israeli piastre (less than one cent)!?
- Less than three years after being found guilty of killing 41 Arab citizens, Lieutenant Dahan was acquitted and appointed " officer responsible of Arab Affiars" in the Municipality of Ramle!!
