To date, Israel has not been held accountable for the massacre despite numerous evidence, survivor testimonies and historic publications at hand.
The Arab League renewed its condemnation of Israel’s “racist and terrorist” policies in Palestine, on the 75th anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre on Sunday.
In a statement shared by Qatar’s state news agency (QNA), the bloc condemned Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians, which has persisted since 1948.
Commenting on the massacre, where Israel killed at least 250 Palestinians, the Arab League’s Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories Said Abu Ali noted that it “rumbled humanity’s and [the] free world’s consciousness.”
The Arab League added that the harrowing massacre marked the beginning of the Nakba, or catastrophe, which saw the forced dispossession of more than 850,000 Palestinians.
“The massacre also represented solid evidence of cleansing crimes committed by Israel (occupation forces) since its start and [is] still bringing about demographic change and imposing a fait accompli policy on the ground,” QNA reported.
The 22-member bloc pointed to current Israeli crimes against Palestinians, at the top of which is the burning of the Huwara town by settlers, the attacks on worshippers at Al Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, and the siege on Gaza.
Remembering the massacre
On 9 April 1948, hundreds of armed Zionist militias, known as Irgun and Haganah, stormed the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, where they committed one of the deadliest massacres in Palestine.
According to Palestine’s news agency (Wafa), most of the victims of the massacre were women, children and elderly.
Israeli militias raped and mutilated Palestinians in cases which are documented to this day, and were responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
At least 700,000 Palestinians were forced out of their lands at the time, marking the beginning of the ongoing forced dispossession of Palestinians.
To date, Israel has not been held accountable for the massacre despite numerous evidence, survivors’ testimonies and historic publications at hand.
With the absence of accountability, Israel has continued to act with impunity, continuing its illegal occupation of Palestine.
“Deir Yassin is a powerful symbol of Palestinian dispossession, as well as a historical fact Israel must confront when retelling its national narrative,” Wafa reported.
The past years witnessed more Israeli efforts to change the status-quo of holy sites in Palestine, mainly the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where it has prevented Palestinian worshippers from praying to make way for Jewish settlers to perform their rituals.
Recent weeks witnessed events of Israeli forces beating Palestinian worshippers and disrupting their prayers.
Qatar has repeatedly condemned Israel’s crimes and holds it “solely responsible” for the violence taking place.
On Sunday, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani echoed the Gulf state’s rejection of Israel’s measures in Al-Aqsa.
“Continuing Israeli violations and attempts to change the historical and legal status of Al-Aqsa Mosque by preventing seclusion, attacking worshippers, and normalising incursions to reach the temporal or spatial separation of the mosque is unacceptable,” Sheikh Mohammed said in a Tweet.
The senior Qatari official further called on the international community to “shoulder its responsibilities towards protecting the rights of the Palestinian people.”
