New study of 1948 Israeli massacre of Palestinian village reveals mass grave sites

Researchers found three possible grave locations beneath the current beach resort at Tantura.

An investigation into a massacre in a destroyed Palestinian village carried out by Israeli forces in the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation has identified three possible mass graves beneath a present-day beach resort.

Palestinian survivors and historians have long claimed that men living in Tantura, a fishing village of approximately 1500 people near Haifa, were executed after surrendering to the Alexandroni Brigade and their bodies dumped in a mass grave believed to be located under an area that is now a car park for Dor Beach. Estimates have ranged from 40 to 200 people.

In recent years, a growing body of evidence for the Tantura massacre has generated significant controversy in Israel, where atrocities committed by Jewish forces in 1948 remain a highly sensitive subject: an Israeli-made documentary about what happened in the village faced widespread backlash on its release last year.

The extensive new investigation by the research agency Forensic Architecture identifies what it says is a second mass grave site in the former village of Tantura, as well as two more possible locations, in the most comprehensive research yet.

The Tantura report was commissioned by Adalah, a Palestinian-run human rights group focusing on legal issues. Based on the findings, Adalah filed on Wednesday a first-of-its-kind legal petition in Israel on behalf of several Tantura families still in the country to demarcate the sites.

“It is hard to argue that there are no mass graves in Tantura. The families’ rights to visit these sites and the right to dignified burial have obviously been violated under both Israeli and international law,” said Suhad Bishara, Adalah’s legal director.

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UK study of 1948 Israeli massacre of Palestinian village reveals mass grave sites (Haaretz)

‘We Israelis tell ourselves a sugar-coated story that we did no wrong’ (The Jewish Independent)

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Photo: Palestinian families leave Tantura in 1948 (Beno Rothenberg: Israel State Archives)