Research in England identified the location of mass graves where Palestinians were buried in 1948.
According to the news of The Guardian newspaper, Forensic Architecture criminal research center of the University of London has located three possible mass graves where up to 200 Palestinian prisoners of war were buried in the village of Tantura, located north of the city of Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast of Israel.
In the report prepared by the research center, which examined archival photographs, maps, aerial images, testimonies of eyewitnesses of that period and Israeli army records from the British period, it was emphasized that physical work was required in the field in order to reveal the mass graves definitively.
“THERE ARE NOT DISCUSSED THAT THERE ARE MASS TOMBS IN TANTURA”
Acting on this, the Palestinian human rights organization “Adalah” applied to the Israeli judiciary on behalf of the relatives of the Palestinians who were thrown into mass graves in line with the information in the report.
Suhad Bishara, Legal Director of Adalah, said, “There is no question that there are mass graves in Tantura. The right of families to visit these graves and bury their relatives with dignity is violated both by Israeli and international law. ‘ rather than making a decision, it clarifies how this will be achieved.” used the phrase.
WITNESS OF THE MASSACRE SPEAK: “The WORLD SHOULD KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO US AT TANTURA”
One of the mass graves in the region is considered to be in the courtyard behind the house of the Hajj el-Yahya family, where human bones were previously found.
Palestinian Adnan Yahya (92), an eyewitness to the Tantura massacre in 1948, said that Zionist militias used him and one of his friends to throw bodies into the mass grave that day.
Yahya, who currently lives in Germany and states that he was only 17 years old on the day of the massacre, said, “I will never forget that day, it is very clear in my memory. I lost my faith that day. The world should know what we experienced in Tantura.” used the phrase.
WOUNDED AT THE MASS TAUGHT
Speaking to the Haaretz newspaper, Yahya said that he and his friend Abdullah were forced to throw the corpses and the wounded into the grave.
Yahya used the following statements:
“We threw corpses and half-alive people into the pit. Abdullah, my friend from school, held his father’s legs and I held his arms. Abdullah said, ‘(My father) is still alive’.”
“TANTURA MASSACRE” IN NEKBE
University of Haifa student Theodore Katz wrote a master’s thesis on the crimes committed by the Israeli Alexandroni militia against Arab POWs in 1998.
Based on this thesis, an article titled “The Tantura Massacre” was published in the Maariv newspaper in 2000.
Thereupon, “Aleksandroni veterans” filed a defamation lawsuit against Katz, and Katz’s findings were archived at the university for years with a “confidential” note, and the subject has remained a professional debate among historian academics until now.
TANTURA MASSACRE MOVED TO THE WHITE SCREEN
Israeli director Alon Schwarz included the events of Tantura in 2022 in a documentary project in addition to what Katz had documented.
The documentary film “Tantura”, which includes militia witnesses of the massacre of Palestinians in the village of Tantura, reopened the debate over what happened in Israel in 1948.
THE “GREAT DISASTER” IN PALESTINE: NEKBE
Israel defines the 1948 Arab-Israeli War process as the “War of Independence”, when Israel occupied the historical Palestinian lands and established the state of Israel on May 14, 1948.
Palestinians refer to May 15 as the “Nakba” (Great Disaster) due to their forced exodus from their occupied lands.
Israel’s declaration of independence on the historic Palestinian land marked the beginning of a decades-long series of disasters for Palestinians. (AA)