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On November 29th, 1947, the UN approved resolution 181, determining that Palestine was to be divided into two states, one for Arabs and one for Jews.

The Deir Yassin Massacre which occurred on April 9th, 1948 when 120 fighters from the Zionist Irgun and Haganah paramilitary groups attacked the village and killed more than 200 of its villagers. These deaths and the stories of the atrocities helped trigger the 1948 Palestinian exodus.

Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem, was part of the plan of Jerusalem, which was to belong to neither state in the United Nations proposal for the division of Palestine. The Arabs rejected the proposal and war broke out as a result. The Zionists attacked the village for two reasons: They would show the Arabs that they intend to fight for Jerusalem, and because the village posed a threat for Jewish neighborhoods.

At the time of the attack, Menachem Begin, who later became Israel’s sixth prime minister, was leader of the Irgun(the National Military Organization). The Two main Zionist forces that were involved were the Irgun and the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel). They were both from the right-wing revisionist Zionist movement.

During the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine in protest of the mass Jewish immigration into the country, the Irgun’s tactics included bus and marketplace bombings. The Lehi broke away from the Irgun in 1940, and carried out assassinations against the British to force them out of Palestine.

The Irgun and Lehi commanders approached the Haganah commander in Jerusalem at first, seeking his approval. He did not agree at first, because the villagers had signed a non-aggression pact, and suggested that they attack another village instead. He eventually yielded to their demand, on condition that they remain in the village so that it would not become an Arab military base. The Lehi further proposed than any villagers who would not flee should be killed to terrify the others and make an example out of them.

The head of the Red Cross in Palestine visited Deir Yassin on April 11th, and noted that more than 200 men, women, and children were dead. An Irgun fighter would testify years later that they executed 80 prisoners after the fighting was over.

Irgun and Legi troops took some of the survivors, including women and children onto trucks to West Jerusalem. There, they were spat at, and stoned, their hands above their heads. Their bodies were later discovered in quarries.

The massacre was a turning point in the Arab Israeli conflict, as it triggered the Palestinian exodus of 1948 due to the perpetrated killings and stories spread about the massacre.

British rule ended in Palestine on May 14th, 1948. The next day, several Arab armies invaded on May 15th, at midnight; thus triggering the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.