Summary
Israeli army brigade whose soldiers, in Manna’s account, perpetrated the two ‘Illut massacres of 16 July 1948 and murdered the martyrs of Ilabun at the end of October 1948 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.195, 197).
Details
- On 16 July 1948 soldiers from the Golani Brigade attacked ‘Illut from the west and the south, ordered all the inhabitants to gather in the courtyard near the mosque, men on one side and women on the other, and blew up houses in which arms were found, including the house of mukhtar Hasan Muhammad al-Ahmad and three other houses (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.197).
- An officer by the name of Nassim, of that attack, led a group of young men to an olive grove, where sixteen named ‘Illut men were mowed down by machine-gun fire; soldiers of the Golani Brigade who had perpetrated the massacre continued to ‘Ayn al-Bayda, where ten more ‘Illut villagers who had been hiding were killed near the spring (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.197).
- The villagers of ‘Ilabun, after their return, memorialized the massacre and the suffering of the previous six months; Habib Zurayq spoke to them memorializing the martyrs who had been murdered by the soldiers of the Golani Brigade at the end of October 1948 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.195).