On November 2, 1948, two squads of Israel Defence Force soldiers captured an encampment of bedouin at 'Arab al-Mawasi in the eastern Galilee. While some soldiers guarded the Arabs, others went to a nearby hilltop where the headless bodies of two Israeli soldiers were found. In retaliation, the Arabs' dwellings were destroyed and 14 adult males were killed. Unusually, the Arab oral history and the IDF archives agree on the number of dead.
Sources
- Israel Defence Force Archives 1096\\1949\\\\65, quoted by Benny Morris, Revisiting the Palestinian Exodus of 1948, in The War for Palestine, eds. E. L. Rogan and A. Shlaim (Cambridge University Press, 2001), p57.
- W. Kalidi (ed.), All That Remains (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992).
