Mass Palestinian grave found in Tel Aviv

[azurnoir]

The remains of dozens of Palestinians killed by Israelis in fighting during the war of 1948 which led to the creation of the state of Israel have been found in a mass grave in Tel Aviv's Jaffa district.

An official at the Muslim cemetery there told AFP news agency that the grisly find occurred on Wednesday when ground subsided as workers carried out renovations, revealing six chambers full of skeletons.

Jaffa fisherman Atar Zeinab, 80, says that as a teenager during the final months of fighting in 1948, he helped to collect the Arab dead in the area south of Jaffa and bring them for hasty burial in the cemetery, the area's main graveyard.

"I carried to the cemetery 60 bodies during a period of three or four months," he told AFP. "We used to find the people in the street and most of the time we didn't know who they were."

He said that the danger of being hit by flying bullets or grenade fragments was such that bodies were dumped one on top of the other in existing family crypts in the cemetery, contrary to Muslim custom.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/06/20136104317486359.html

[polly7]

1. Horrible:( nt.

[azurnoir]

5. But of course the usual denials were swift in coming and completely

predictable

[Mosby]

2. no one knows yet how and when they died.

But of course the arab media can't wait for the facts to come out.

[The Straight Story]

3. Ok, let's go with that - how about the account of what led to the reason they believe it to be so?

Jaffa fisherman Atar Zeinab, 80, says that as a teenager during the final months of fighting in 1948, he helped to collect the Arab dead in the area south of Jaffa and bring them for hasty burial in the cemetery, the area's main graveyard.

"I carried to the cemetery 60 bodies during a period of three or four months," he told AFP. "We used to find the people in the street and most of the time we didn't know who they were."

So whether or not these are the bones is another story....

[Mosby]

4. I'm having a lot of trouble with my phone

This is from al-monitor:

The Al-Aqsa Association cited Mohammed Ashkar, the person responsible for the Al-Kazkhana cemetery renovation project, as saying that the mass graves might date back to the Palestinian nakba and the revolution of 1936 against the British occupation.

Eghbariyeh, on the other hand, preferred not to commit to a single explanation and said, “Further documentation and in-depth research is needed to find out what the truth is about these graves. We are certain, however, that the remains belong to our ancestors killed by occupation forces.” The identity of those who buried them remains a mystery, as Eghbariyeh added, “We are not certain if all the remains were buried by our people, or if occupation forces secretly buried some of them, only to be later found out.”

So the mass grave could date back to the arab riots in 1936, which involved the British not the Zionists.