The Ma'alot massacre was a Palestinian terrorist attack that took place in May 1974 and involved two days of hostage taking against 115 Israelis who ended up killing more than 25 hostages. It began when three armed members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) entered Israel from Lebanon. Soon after they attacked a van, killing two Israeli Arab women while injuring a third and entering an apartment building in the town of Ma'alot, where they killed a couple and their four-year-old son. From there, they headed to Netiv Meir Primary School, where they took over 115 people (including 105 children) hostage on May 15, 1974, at Ma'alot. Most of the hostages were teens from high school in Safad on a Gadna field trip spending the night at Ma'alot. The hostage takers immediately issued a demand to free 23 Palestinian militants from Israeli jails, or they would kill the students. On the second day of the impasse, Sayeret Matkal stormed the building. During the takeover, the hostages killed children with grenades and automatic weapons. Finally, 25 hostages, including 22 children, were killed and 68 others wounded.
Video Ma'alot massacre
Serangan
Ma'alot, located on the plateau in the hills of the Israeli Western Galilee, six miles south of the Lebanese border, is a city of development founded in 1957 by Jewish immigrants, mainly from Morocco and Tunisia. The attack was carried out by three members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) which put on the uniform of Israeli Defense Forces.
The DFLP terrorists infiltrated through the Nahal Mattat Nature Reserve from the southern village of Rumaysh Lebanon. The group entered Israel near Moshav Zar'it on Sunday night, May 13. They were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and plastic explosives from Czechoslovakia. They hid until the following night in the orchard near the village of Druze, Hurfeish. A border patrol unit found their footprints but could not follow the trail, and mistakenly reported to the boss that the footprints belonged to the smuggler.
Continuing to Ma'alot on a winding road, they found a van driven by the Druze population of Hurfiesh carrying Christian Arab women from the village of Fassuta home from work at Ata Textile Works in Haifa Bay area. The operations leader, Linou, stood on the street and fired on the vehicle, immediately killed a woman, and injured the driver and other workers, one of whom later died of his injuries. The driver turned off the headlights and drove back up the hill to Moshav Tzuriel.
Reaching Ma'alot, the militants knocked on the doors of several houses. Fortuna and Yosef Cohen heard the sound and opened their doors. The militants shot and killed the couple, their 4-year-old son, Eliahu, and wounded their 5-year-old daughter Miriam. Fortuna, seven months pregnant, tried to escape from the intruders, but he was also shot. The only family member who survived unscathed was a 16-month-old Yitzhak, who was deaf-mute. From there, the militants headed to Netiv Meir Primary School where students on school trips were auctioned. On the way, they met Yaakov Kadosh, a sanitation worker, and asked for directions to school. They hit and shot him, leaving him dead.
Netiv Meir Primary School is a three-story concrete building with an apartment building being built nearby. The militants entered the building at 4 am, carrying 102 hostage students. The teenagers who spent the night in the school building were traveling for three days. They are students from high school in Safad. Allegedly one of the parents of a murdered teenager has pleaded with the principal to cancel the trip after learning that militants have entered the area. It was considered too late to cancel the trip because all the arrangements had been made. Three of the four teachers fled by jumping through the windows, leaving their 90 disciples to their fates, creating a lot of bitterness among the parents. Teachers are immediately suspended from their posts by local authorities. 85 students and some teachers were taken hostage. The students were forced to sit on the floor at gunpoint, with accusations of explosions between them.
In the morning, the militants demanded the release of Israeli jails 23 Arabs and three other detainees, including Kozo Okamoto - a Japanese citizen involved in the Lod2 Airport Mass Massacre in 1972. Unless these conditions are met, they declare that they will kill the students. The deadline is set to 6:00 pm the same day.
At 10 am a young man named Sylvan Zerach, at home on leave from the army, stood near the base of a high concrete water tower not far from the schoolhouse to get a closer look at what was going on. He was killed by militants. At the Knesset emergency session, a decision was reached to negotiate, but the hostages rejected the request for more time.
Takeover operation
At 5:25 pm, the elite commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal special forces was given a 'green light' to storm the building. The attack power is divided into three units; two to enter from the entrance while the third climbs the stairs and enters from the window facing north. The team moved into position from the blind side to the east, from the frame of several apartment buildings under construction. The operation has been coordinated with sniper fire on three hostage takers. At 17:32 the first team entered the building through the main entrance on the first floor, which was blocked with tables and chairs. The first three-man team, led by Yuval Galili from Kibbutz Geva, was shot in the stairs to the second floor. Galili threw a phosphorus grenade into the second floor hallway to create a smoke screen. The smoke from the blast blinded the second team led by Amir Levine, who had been ordered to take Linou, at that time posted on a third floor window where he shot Zerach.
When they entered the classroom where the students were held, Haribi grabbed a student, Gabi Amsalem, and held him at gunpoint on the floor. Rachim was shot dead but Linou managed to reach the classroom, picked up some magazines from the teacher's desk and refilled his weapon. He then sprayed students with a machinegun gun and threw a grenade out the window. When the flames broke his left wrist, he threw two grenades at a group of girls crouched on the floor. Some students jumped from the window to the ground, about ten feet down.
In addition to the three DFLP militants, twenty-two high school students were killed in the attack and more than fifty people were injured. The victims' students are buried in their hometown, Safed. Some of the 10,000 mourners who attended the funeral shouted "Death to the terrorists".
Victim
Kill terrorist
- Ali Ahmad Hasan al-Atmah (Linou), 27, from Haifa
- Ziyad Abdar-Rahim Ka'ik (Ziyad), 22, from Tayiba
- Muhammad Muslih Salim Dardour (Harbi), 20, from Beit Hanina
Maps Ma'alot massacre
Israeli Response
The next day the Israeli Defense Forces bombed the DFLP and PFLP training offices and training bases. According to the BBC report, the bombings caused damage in seven Palestinian refugee camps and villages in southern Lebanon that killed at least 27 people and left 138 people injured.
Upon investigation, Attorney General Meir Shamgar ruled that three teachers who fled and left their students made no mistakes. The victim's parents angrily rejected the report.
The massacre led to the formation of a special police unit of Yamam.
Amos Horev, President of Haifa's Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, headed the Commission of Inquiry in May 1975 that investigated the massacre. The Commission's next report mentions a number of errors made by the government and the security forces, and makes some recommendations.
Warning
In 2007, American filmmakers visited Ma'alot to make a documentary about the massacre. A warning corner in the school library of Netiv Meir shows photographs of victims and archival records of the massacre. The feature film, Their Eyes Dry , retells the story of the massacre.
A Reform synagogue in southern California was named Shir Ha-Ma'alot ("The Song of the Ascent") to commemorate the victims.
See also
- Palestinian terrorism
- List of massacres in Israel
- School bus attack avivim
- Israeli war victims
- Beslan school hostage crisis 2004 hostage crisis in Russia by Islamic militants
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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