Summary
Palestinian town on the inner plains, the ‘city of the mosques’, attacked in Operation Dani in July 1948: the first city bombarded from the air, the scene of the Dahamish Mosque massacre, and emptied by a forced march of about 50,000 people to the West Bank, in Pappe’s account; today the Jewish development town of Lod.
Details
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Lydd lies fifty metres above sea level roughly halfway between Jaffa and Jerusalem; its Big Mosque, al-Umari, was built under the Mamluk Sultan Rukn al-Din Baybars, and the Dahamish Mosque could host 800 worshippers. Today it is Lod, one of the belt towns encircling Tel-Aviv, and for many years the name of Israel’s only international airport, today called Ben-Gurion Airport (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.199).
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On 10 July 1948 Ben-Gurion appointed Yigal Allon commander of the attack, with Yitzhak Rabin his second in command; Allon first ordered Lydd bombarded from the air, the first city to be attacked in this way (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.199).
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The remaining Arab Liberation Army volunteers left after learning that the Arab Legion units stationed nearby had been instructed by their British chief, John Glubb, to withdraw, although Lydd lay clearly within the designated Arab state (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.199-200).
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The men of Lydd who took shelter in the Dahamish Mosque surrendered after a few hours of fighting, only to be massacred inside the mosque; Palestinian sources recount 426 men, women and children killed in the mosque and the nearby streets, 176 bodies found in the mosque (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.200).
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The following day, 14 July, soldiers went from house to house and marched about 50,000 people out of the city towards the West Bank, more than half of them already refugees from nearby villages; at roadblocks the refugees, particularly the women, were systematically robbed of gold jewellery, money and belongings (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.200-202).
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One of the most detailed accounts is Salim Tamari’s 1998 Journal of Palestine Studies study drawing on the eyewitness Spiro Munayar, a young physician working in the local hospital alongside Dr George Habash (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.200).
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Two American correspondents embedded with the attacking forces, Keith Wheeler of The Chicago Sun Times and Kenneth Bilby of The New York Herald Tribune, reported the corpses of Arab men, women and children but did not probe the Palestinian toll (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.201).
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Sitta’s register lists Lydda at S 64: depopulation date 9-07-48 with the notes “10,13-Jul.Remain1200”, Exodus Causes E/M, defenders AL, a Massacres M mark, Arab Population 48 of 19,442 on 42,838 dunums, and 95,588 UNRWA-registered refugees in this list (The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, PDF p.2).
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In Manna, the murder of dozens in the Dahmash mosque massacre in Lydda and the expulsion of tens of thousands of Lydda and neighbouring Ramla inhabitants on a blistering hot Ramadan day (11-12 July 1948) inflamed sentiments and drew sharp criticism of King Abdullah and his British-officered army, stationed nearby at Latrun, for not assisting; the political atmosphere this created may explain the greater caution exercised when Nazareth was occupied a few days later (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.71).
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Al-Hawwari, in Manna’s review of his book, mentions Lydda among the places where, following the first cease-fire, the Israeli army carried out killings, plundered property and attacked residents (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.52).
Related pages
The Palestinian Nakba 1948 — The Register of Depopulated Localities in Palestine, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Operation Dani, Ramla, Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Rabin, John Glubb, George Habash