Summary
Israeli army plan (“hafarperet” in Hebrew), uncovered in part by researcher Ruvik Rosenthal, under which the army was to expel the Arab population of the southern The Triangle from their homes to detention camps if war broke out near the end of 1956 — which Manna presents as a cause and backdrop of the mindset behind the Kafr Kassim massacre (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.218).
Details
- According to the plan, soldiers were to move the Arab inhabitants from their villages near the border in the southern Triangle to detention camps, and the army conducted exercises for it (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.218).
- Manna argues the available information shows the army looked on the Arabs as enemies who could be shoved into the camps, and that this, with the dominant mood in the army and particularly the Border Guards — accustomed over the years to killing Arabs along the border — explains why the soldiers did not hesitate to fire on citizens returning from their fields on 29 October 1956 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.218).
- Manna notes some Israeli leaders were apparently convinced the southern Triangle’s population could be made to migrate under the smokescreen of the Sinai war, and that preparations increased after the costly Qalqilya retaliatory operation of 10 October 1956 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.218).