RAMALLAH – Hundreds of Arab Palestinians Monday marked the 56th anniversary of the massacre which took place in the Arab city of Kafr Qassim inside Israel. The massacre was carried out by Israeli Border Police officers and resulted in the death of 48 Arab civilians. Nader Sarsour, the mayor of Kafr Qassim said that the families of martyrs, hundreds from the city and delegations from other Arab cities and villages, participated in the rally. Sarsour added that Arab Members of Israeli Knesset, leaders of the Arab community and a number of left-wing Israelis also attended the activity. Sarsour said that the participants called out against “fascism” and the Israeli government's “violent and racist discourse.” The massacre took place on Oct. 29, 1956 when a sergeant from the Israeli Border Guard police informed the mayor of Kafr Qassim Wadi' Ahmad Sarsour, that a curfew would be imposed on the village, and asked him to inform the village's residents. Only 30 minutes before the new curfew time, the mayor tried to convince the Israeli officer that about 400 villagers whose work took them outside the village would not be able to receive the warning in time. The officer told him that his soldiers would take care of that. The villagers who were home complied. Meanwhile, the officers posted themselves at the village's gates. The first batch of villagers returned homes but unaware of the curfew. They were met by the soldiers who shot them at a close range. Others, unaware of the danger awaiting them, started to reach the village's entrance. They were met with the same fate. After this massacre was over, Border Guard officers gathered together the corpses of the 48 victims, took them in a truck and threw them into a thicket located near the police station in the then Israeli settlement of Ra's Al-Aayn, where the bodies were buried temporarily. However, two days later they decided to bury them in the village's cemetery. Kafr Qassim is a hill-top Arab city located about twenty kilometers east of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, near the Green Line separating Israel and the West Bank. Mohammed Barakeh, Arab Member of Israeli Knesset, said that “unfortunately, the anniversary of the massacre is relevant more than ever before. The idea of a (population) transfer, which was the guiding principle of the massacre, has become the official discourse of the Israeli government.” “We sense the danger but do not fear the racists. We will defeat them one day,” Barakeh, also chairman of Hadash party, added.
