Yehud attack

1953 attack on Israeli civilians by Palestinian Arab fedayeen

32°02′11″N 34°53′44″E / 32.03639°N 34.89556°E / 32.03639; 34.89556Date12 October 1953; 70 years ago (1953-10-12)
Attack type
Terrorist attackWeaponHand grenadeDeaths3 civiliansPerpetratorsPalestinian Fedayeen squad
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Palestinian Fedayeen
insurgency
Early engagements
  • Al-Hamma Incident
  • Beit Jala raid
  • Yehud attack

1954–55 incidents

  • Ma'ale Akrabim massacre
  • Qibya massacre
  • Operation Black Arrow
  • Operation Elkayam
  • Operation Egged
  • Operation Volcano
  • Operation Olive Leaves

1956 incidents

The Yehud attack was an attack on a civilian house in the village of Yehud carried out by a Palestinian fedayeen squad on 12 October 1953. Three Israeli Jewish civilians, a mother and her infant children, were killed in the attack.

The attack

On Monday, 12 October 1953, a Palestinian Fedayeen squad infiltrated into Israel from Jordan. The militants reached the Jewish village Yehud, located about 13 kilometers (8 mi) east of Tel Aviv, where they threw a grenade into a civilian house.[1]

A Jewish woman, Suzanne Kinyas, and her two children (a 3-year-old girl and a 1+1⁄2-year-old boy) were killed.[1]

The tracks of the perpetrators led to the Palestinian village of Rantis, then under the control of Jordan, located about five miles north of Qibya.[2]

The attack shocked the Israeli public, both because it was the first terror attack committed in the center of Israel and because the victims of the attack were a woman and her infant children, who were killed in their sleep.[2]

Israeli retaliation

Although the commander of the Arab Legion (as the Jordanian Armed Forces were known at the time), Glubb Pasha, promised that Jordan would catch the perpetrators and bring them to justice, on the morning of 13 October a decision was made by the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and the Chief of Staff Mordechai Maklef, deputy chief of staff Moshe Dayan and acting defense minister Pinhas Lavon, of retaliation in response to the Yehud attack.[3] About 130 IDF soldiers participated in the reprisal codenamed Operation Shoshana (after the three-year-old girl killed in the Yehud attack), which was commanded by Ariel Sharon. The IDF force arrived at the village of Qibya, threw grenades and fired through the windows and doors of the houses. Then blew up 45 houses, a school, and a mosque. About 60 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed.[4]

The act was condemned by the U.S. State Department, the UN Security Council, and by Jewish communities worldwide.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Byman, Daniel (2011). A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism. Oxford University Press. p. 22. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
  2. ^ a b Becker, Avihai (8 January 2003). "They Were Three". Haaretz.
  3. ^ a b Avi Shlaim (2001). The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 91. ISBN 0-393-32112-6. Avi Shlaim writes: "The Qibya massacre unleashed against Israel a storm of international protest of unprecedented severity in the country's short history."
  4. ^ Benny Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez War, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 258-9.

External links

  • Jordan lets Israelis track killer of 3 - Published on The New York Times on 14 October 1953
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Prominent terrorist attacks against Israelis in the history of the Arab–Israeli conflict – the 1950s
1953
  • Yehud attack (October 12)
1954
1956
  Attacks launched from Jordan   Attacks launched from Egypt 1960s
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Prominent Palestinian militancy attacks in the 1950s
Within Israel
1 Attacks launched from Jordan 2 Attacks launched from Egypt 1960s