Victims of Hadassah massacre to be memorialized

[Behind the Aegis]

A street will be named in memory of Dr. Haim Yassky, the director-general of the Hadassah Medical Organization who led an ill-fated supply convoy to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus 60 years ago.

In April 1948, the medical convoy was attacked by Arabs and 80 people - 79 Jews and a British soldier - were killed. Memorial events will be held on Wednesday.

The massacre - announced by the Arab League and instigated and planned in part by the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, aiming for the ethnic cleansing of the Jews of Jerusalem and Palestine - included ambushes, sniper fire and shelling, and was accompanied by a blockade of Jerusalem that resulted in near starvation, and invasion by armies of the Arab states.

In the convoy massacre, 80 people - mostly civilians, including doctors and nurses - were murdered while trying to bring medical supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital, which had been cut off. The massacre was a gross violation of international military conventions and human rights. According to documents in the hands of Hadassah, British mandatory personnel cooperated and participated in it. No one was ever prosecuted, and British collaborators were never investigated.

At 9 a.m. this Wednesday, a symbolic convoy - which will include teenagers - will leave the site of the former Mandelbaum Gate, once a checkpoint between the Israeli and Jordanian sectors of Jerusalem, just north of the western edge of the Old City, and proceed up to Mount Scopus. Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski will be among those attending the road-naming ceremony at 11:30 a.m. at the intersection of Rehovot Aharon Katzir, Halehi and Churchill, about 350 meters from the entrance to the hospital.

more...

[henank]

1. The British collaboration

is the most shocking part of the whole thing, especially as the victims were mostly medical personnel. Shame on them!

[kayecy]

2. British collaboration?......It is amazing how biased some references can be........

For another version of this incident, see wikipedia:

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadassah_medical_convoy_massacre

"The Attack
On April 13, a convoy of two Haganah escort cars, two ambulances and two buses set off for the hospital in the early morning.<4> At approximately 9:45, the leading vehicle was hit by a mine and the convoy came under attack by Arab forces spraying machine gun fire. After the buses began to leak gasoline, they were set on fire by Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs). British forces came to the convoy's assistance, but had only limited resources. One of the first men on the scene was Major Jack Churchill, who offered to evacuate members of the convoy in an APC. His offer was refused in the belief that the Haganah would come to their aid. When no relief arrived, Churchill and his 12 men provided what cover fire they could against hundreds of Arab militants. <5>Following the massacre, Churchill oversaw the evacuation of 700 patients and staff from the hospital.<6>"

See also: http://www.zionism-israel.com/his/Hadassah_convoy_Massacre.htm

"Major Jack Churchill, of the Highland Light Infantry, drove an open-fronted armored car to the scene on his one initiative and was about to put a towline on one of the buses when his driver was killed by a bullet in the neck. Churchill pulled in the tow and drove out of the area, but before doing so, banged on one bus and shouted to the occupants to risk getting out and returning with him. He later reported they had refused to do so."

J Siegel of the the Jerusalem Post states "According to documents in the hands of Hadassah, British mandatory personnel cooperated and participated in it. No one was ever prosecuted, and British collaborators were never investigated

Has anyone seen a reference to these documents in an independent source?


The historian Martin Gilbert reports the Hadassah massacre incident in his "Israel a History". p170 but makes no reference to "British collaborators"

[oberliner]

3. Here is the account from Hadassah

It's a PDF:

http://www.hadassah.org/education/content/StudyGuides/Convoy_ITAD.pdf

[kayecy]

4. Many thanks oberliner for that horrifying 'Convoy' report

Many thanks oberliner for that horrifying “Convoy” report....Above all it shows how horrible the 1948 conflict was and how hard on civilians....It should be remembered that the British had been subject to lethal terrorist attacks from both the Arabs and Jews in the previous days and were no doubt heartily sick of both sides.

Just a few comments:

1. The ‘Convoy’ report gives no indication of who produced it, nevertheless it has an authentic ring about it, especially the eye-witness descriptions

2. The Jerusalem Post article stated: “According to documents in the hands of Hadassah, British mandatory personnel cooperated and participated in it...No one was ever prosecuted, and British collaborators were never investigated”

3. The ‘Convoy’ report gives no support for the JP’s claim of British cooperation with the Arabs...British personnel did participate in the action but not in any obviously anti-Jewish manner.

4. The ‘Convoy’ report make no mention of any complaint after the event, so it is not surprising there was no investigation and no prosecutions, particularly as the British were within days of completing their withdrawal.

5. Assuming this “Convoy” document is the only source of Ms Siegel’s article, one must ask why she took the trouble to make such an inflammatory statement of doubtful authenticity....In any event, the article does not reflect very well on the integrity and impartiality of the Jerusalem Post.
.

[henank]

6. David Ben Gurion mentioned in his autobiography

here

The British Observe the Hadassah Convoy Massacre

The discouraging record begins even before the founding of the state. In his autobiography, David Ben-Gurion recalls when the British, then governing Palestine, took the term "observer" to extremes. On April 13, 1948, a convoy of ambulances and armored buses headed for Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. Two hundred meters from the British military post that was supposed to secure the route, the convoy came under Arab attack from both sides of the road. "The soldiers ," Ben-Gurion reports, "watched the attack but did nothing." British military cars passed three times during the seven hours that the convoy was under attack, one including Jerusalem's ranking British general, but they did not stop to intervene or assist. Seventy-seven Jewish doctors, nurses, academics, and students were massacred that day, after top British officials had "personally guaranteed" that medical and civilian transports would be protected by the British army and police.4

The footnote reads as follows: (no link)

4. David Ben-Gurion, Israel: A Personal History (Tel Aviv: Sabra Books, 1972), p. 73. Ben-Gurion reprints this harrowing account from another book, Faithful City, by Dov Joseph. During the massacre, which lasted seven hours, a Jewish Agency liaison officer was told by British military headquarters not to send Hagana forces because the British Army had the situation in hand and would extricate the convoy.

[kayecy]

5. Judy Siegel-Itzkovich of the Jerusalem Post replied as follows::

I contacted J Siegel of the Jerusalem Post a few hours ago to ask her where she got her information from......She replied to me as follows:

"I found this in Wikipedia and other sites, but I don't remember where.

But there are so many murderers who have never been punished. Hundreds of terrorists in Israel alone.

Thanks.
Judy
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
The Jerusalem Post's
Health and Science Reporter
and Software Reviewer"


Gee Whiz!......Wikipedia.....Talk about original research!

[LeftishBrit]

7. One of the most horrifying attacks...

Attacking a medical supply convoy is one of the worst things I can think of.

It's controversial whether the British actually collaborated, or simply failed to respond adequately - but certainly they failed to prevent this horrible event, to their (our) shame.