Palestinians mark 68th anniversary of Israeli Deir Yassin massacre

Palestinians have marked the 68th anniversary of the massacre of over 100 Palestinian civilians by Zionist militia forces in the West Bank village of Deir Yassin.

The Saturday event in the western al-Quds (Jerusalem) village came as Palestinians in occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and elsewhere in the West Bank continue to struggle for their livelihood in the face of persisting Israeli settlement expansion, widespread detentions, extrajudicial executions by Israeli forces, and a surge in housing demolitions, Ma’an news agency reported.

Deir Yassin has long remained a symbol of Israeli violence against Palestinians due to the particularly gruesome nature of the 1948 slaughter, which targeted men, women, children, and the elderly in the tiny village.

The Deir Yassin massacre, which was carried out on April 9, 1948, was led by the Irgun militia group, whose head was future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, with support from fellow Zionist militiamen affiliated with Haganah and Lehi groups.

According to the report, the massacre was one of the first in what would become a long line of attacks in a number of Palestinian villages, part of a broader strategy called Plan Dalet by Zionist groups to scare Palestinians in the hope that the terror would lead to an Arab exodus.

Around 750,000 Palestinians took refuge abroad in the face of the massacres — most notorious among them that in Deir Yassin.

Today, the descendants of those killed and those who left number more than five million, and their right to return to Palestine remains a central political demand.

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