It was occupied on 30th of October 1948.  On 15 of February 1948, the Palmach Third Battalion killed 15 villagers including 5 children and the destruction of 15 village houses. Another unknown massacre occurred in Sa’as’ during occupation on the handed of the terror gangs of Sheva’ (Seventh) Brigade.

The village has been mostly destroyed with the exception of few houses, some are deserted, and some are used by Jewish settlers. The refugees are mostly living in Naher al-Barid refugee camp near Tripoli (Lebanon), some are in al-Rashidyah refugee camp near Sour/ Tyre (Lebanon), and few refugees living in the village of al-Ghaziyah (mostly from al-Sayid clan) near ‘Ayn al-Hilwah refugee camp. The village had two elementary school, one school was for boys, and the other school for girls, one mosque. Some of the olive trees remain and a number of walls and houses are presently used by the settlement, one of them has an arched entrance and arched windows.

The population in 1945 was 1,130. The Arabs own 12,822 dunums meanwhile the Jews didn’t own anything.

Source: palestineremembred.com

Following are details on the massacre recounted by the distinguished former U.S. Congressman from Illinois, Paul Findley: The day of the attack began in routine fashion, with the ship first proceeding slowly in an easterly direction in the eastern Mediterranean, later following the contour of the coastline  westerly about fifteen miles off the Sinai Peninsula.

On the mainland, Israeli forces were winning smashing victories in the third Arab-Israeli war  in nineteen years. Israeli Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, announcing that the Israelis had taken  the entire Sinai and broken the blockade on the Strait of Tiran declared: “The Egyptians are  defeated.” On the eastern front the Israelis had overcome Jordanian forces and captured  most of the West Bank.

At 6 a.m. an airplane, identified by the Liberty crew as an Israeli Noratlas, circled the ship slowly and departed. This procedure was repeated periodically over an eight-hour period.

At 9.a.m a jet appeared at a distance, then left. At 10 a.m. two rocket-armed jets circled the  ship three times. They were close enough for their pilots to be observed through binoculars. The planes were unmarked. An hour later the Israeli Noratlas returned, flying not more than  200 feet directly above the Liberty, and clearly marked with the Star of David. The ship’s crewmembers and the pilot waved at each other. This plane returned every few minutes until 1 p.m. By then, the ship had changed course and was proceeding  lmost due west.

At 2.00 p.m. all hell broke loose. Three Mirage fighter planes headed straight for the Liberty, their rockets taking out the forward machine guns and wrecking the ship’s antennae. The  mirages were joined by Mystere fighters, which dropped napalm o the bridge and deck  and repeatedly strafed the ship. The attack continued for over 20 minutes. In all, the ship  sustained 821 holes in her sides and decks. Of these, more tan 100 were rocket size.

As the aircraft departed, three torpedo boats took over the attack, firing five torpedoes, one  of which tore a 40-foot hole in the hull, killing 25 sailors. The ship was in flames, dead in the  water, listing precariously, and taking water. The crew was ordered to prepare to abandon  ship. As life rafts were lowered into the water, the torpedo boats moved closer and shot  them to pieces. One plane concentrated machine-gun fire on rafts still on deck as  crewmembers there tried to extinguish the napalm fire. Petty Officer Charles Rowley  declares, “They didn’t want anymore to live.”

Source: Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem by Issa Nakhleh

We were awakened in the middle of the night by heavy gunfire. The women began to scream and run out of the houses, carrying their children, and gathered in several places in the village. I went out of the house too and began running around the streets to see what was going on. Suddenly a woman shouted to me: “Your uncle is wounded! Quick, bring some alcohol!” I saw my uncle bleeding heavily from the shoulder. Being young, I was unconscious of danger. I grabbed an empty bottle and ran to the dispensary nearby.

Zahabiyya, the nurse, was there. She was one of the Christians of the village. She filled the bottle with alcohol and I ran back to my uncle. The women cleaned the wound and took my uncle to our house where he hid from the soldiers in the grain attic. But the soldiers saw the trail of blood and soon burst in, asking my grandfather where my uncle was. My grandfather said he didn’t know. They left but came back several times with the same question. At some point my uncle, who was in pain, asked for a cigarette and my grandmother gave him one.

When the soldiers came back again the smell of the tobacco guided them to him. They took him away. On their way out they insulted my grandfather and called him a liar, and he answered back that anyone would protect his own son. My uncle survived thanks to the intervention of the mukhtar of the Jewish colony Zichron Yaacov. He had good relations with my grandfather, who was the mukhtar of Tantura. At 9 in the morning, the shooting stopped and the attackers rounded everyone up on the beach.

They sorted them out, the women and children on one side, the men on the other. They searched the men and ordered them to keep their hands above their heads. Female soldiers searched the women and took all their jewelry, which they put in a soldier’s helmet.

They didn’t give them back when they expelled us towards Fraydiss. During the entire operation, military boats were offshore. On the beach, the soldiers led groups of men away and you could her gunfire after each departure. Towards noon we were led on foot to an orchard to the east of the village and I saw a bodies  piled on a cart pulled by men of Tantura, who emptied their cargo in a big pit.

Then trucks arrived and women and children were loaded onto them and driven to Fraydiss. On the road,  near the railroad tracks, other bodies were scattered about.

Source: palestineremembered.com

Occupation date: 29th of October 1948. The massacre of 70 blind folded men, also three cases of rape, including the rape of 14 years old girl. The girl was raped while getting water for the soldiers.

The village has been mostly destroyed with the exception of few houses (some are  inhabited by Jewish settlers).  Its villagers fled to Lebanon after the Safsaf massacre in October 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Some made it to Syria: Nahr El-Bared, Burj Al-Barajneh, Badawi, Ein Al-Helweh, Sabra/Shatila, Ghoro- Ba’labak, Wihdat (Amman-Jordan), Ein Elma, Burj Al-Shamali, Tal Al-Za’atar, Yarmouk (Syria), and Homs (Syria).

The Romans referred to the village by safsofa.  Safsaf had an elementary school for boys founded during the British Mandate period. There was one mosque and the shrine of al-Ajami located in the southern borders of Safsaf. Nowadays, we can see in Safsaf an Israeli settlement named ha-Shahar and Bar Yochay. In 1596 the population was (138), in the 19th century (100), in 1931 (662) and in 1945 (910). The Arab’s land ownership was 5,344 dunums, Jewish 0 dunums, and public 2,047 dunums.

Source:palestineremembered.com

Occupation date: 22^nd of April 1948. Kirad al-Ghannama was mostly ethnically cleansed and terrorized soon after the massacre  committed at the nearby village of al-Husayniyya.

In mid-March 1948, a Haganah massacre in the neighboring village of al-Husayniyya “left dozens of dead,” according to Israeli sources, and led to the temporary evacuation of Kirad al-Ghannama. The following month, it was temporarily (or partially) evacuated again during Operation Yiftach (see Abil al-Qamh, Salad District). On 22 April the villagers reportedly left during that operation under the influence of a direct mili­tary assault on a nearby village, perhaps al-’Ulmaniyya (which was attacked on 20 April). In July 1949, Israel signed an armistice agreement accord­ing to which Kirad aI-Ghannama was to be located within a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and the inhabitants of the area were to be protected. However, the Israeli authorities were determined to drive out those villagers who had remained, and deployed a variety of means over the following seven years to do so (see Kirad al-Baqqara, Salad District). By 1956, the DMZ’s 2,200 inhabitants had been pushed out, and Kirad al-Ghannama was evacuated for the third time.

Land ownership before occupation

Source: palestineremembered.com

Upon Lydda’s and Ramla’s occupation on July 11-12, 1948, the Israelis were surprised to find that over 60,000 Palestinian civilians didn’t flee their homes. Subsequently, Ben-Gurion ordered the wholesale expulsion of all civilians (including man women, children, and old people), in the middle of the hot Mediterranean summer. The orders to ethnically cleanse both cities were signed the future Prime Minister of Israel, by Yitzhak Rabin. Many of the refugees died (400+ according to the Palestinian historian ‘Aref al-‘Aref) from thirst, hunger, and heat exhaustion after being stripped of their valuables on the way out by the Israeli soldiers.

From the quotes below, it shall be conclusively proven that the Palestinian version of the events (at least in the cases of Lydda and Ramla) is the true version. It should be noted the Zionist account of this war crime was intentionally suppressed until Yitzhak Rabin reported it in his biography and in a New York Times interview (which was censored in Israel at the time), however, it was later confirmed in the declassified Israeli and Zionist archives.

Famous Quotes

Yitzhak Rabin wrote in his diary soon after Lydda’s and Ramla’s occupation on 10th-11th of July 1948:

“After attacking Lydda [later called Lod] and then Ramla, …. What would they do with the 50,000 civilians living in the two cities ….. Not even Ben-Gurion could offer a solution …. and during the discussion at operation headquarters, he [Ben-Gurion] remained silent, as was his habit in such situations. Clearly, we could not leave [Lydda’s] hostile and armed populace in our rear, where it could endangered the supply route [to the troops who were] advancing eastward.
Ben-Gurion would repeat the question: What is to be done with the population?, waving his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out! [garush otam in Hebrew]. ‘Driving out’ is a term with a harsh ring, …. Psychologically, this was on of the most difficult actions we undertook“. (Soldier Of Peace, p. 140-141 & Benny Morris, p. 207) .

Later, Rabin underlined the cruelty of the operation as mirrored in the reaction of the soldiers, he stated during an interview (which was censored in Israeli publications) with David Shipler from the New York Times on October 22, 1979:

“Great Suffering was inflicted upon the men taking part in the eviction action. [They] included youth-movement graduates who had been inculcated with values such as international brotherhood and humaneness. The eviction action went beyond the concepts they were used to. There were some fellows who refused to take part. . . Prolonged propaganda activities were required after the action . . . to explain why we were obliged to undertake such a harsh and cruel action.” (Simha Flapan, p. 101)

It should be noted that just before the outbreak of the war in 1948, the residents of the two cities, Lydda and Ramla, constituted close to 20% of the total urban population in central Palestine, including Jewish Tel-Aviv. Currently, these people and their descendants number nearly half a million, and they mostly live in deplorable refugee camps around Amman (Jordan) and Ramallah (West Bank). Based on Rabin’s personal account of events, the decision to ethnically cleanse the two cities was not an easy one, however, that did not stop him from giving a similar order, 19 years later, to ethnically cleanse and destroy the villages of ‘Imwas, Yalu, and Bayt Nuba. The exodus from these cities was portrayed firsthand by Ismail Shammout, the renowned Palestinian artist from Lydda, click here to view his exodus gallery. Similarly, Mr. Youssif Munayyer have a written on this subject part of the 64 anniversary of Nakba in an OP-ED article to the NY Time, click here for details

On July 24, 1948 the Mapai Center held a full-scale debate regarding the Palestinian Arab question against the background of the ethnic cleansing of Ramla and Lydda. The majority apparently backed Ben-Gurion’s policies of population transfer or ethnic cleansing. Shlomo Lavi, one of the influential leaders of the Mapai party, said that:

“the … transfer of the [Palestinian] Arabs out of the country in my eyes is one of the most just, moral, and correct that can be done. I have thought of this for many years.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 192)

When the First Truce ended, Operation Dani headquarters (near Ramle and Lydda) informed the Israeli General Staff on July 10 1948:

“a general and considerable [civilian] flight from Ramle. There is great value in continuing the bombing.” During the afternoon, the headquarters asked the General Staff for renewed bombing, and informed one of the brigades: “Flight from the town of Ramle of women, the old, and children is to be facilitated. The [military age] males are to be detained.” (Benny Morris, p. 204)

Soon after the Lydda massacre was carried out by the Israeli Army Yiftah Brigade on July 10, 1948, Mula Cohen (the brigade’s commander) wrote of his experience when expelling the 50,000-60,000 Palestinians who inhabited Ramle and Lydda:

“There is no doubt the Lydda-Ramle affair and the flight of the inhabitants, the uprising and the expulsion [geirush in Hebrew] that followed cut deep grooves in all who underwent [these experiences].” (Benny Morris, p. 206)

Yitzhak Rabbin, the commander of Operation Dani in Ramle area, communicated the following explicit orders at 1:30 PM on July 12, 1948 to Yiftah Brigade (see above quote):

“1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age. They should be directed towards Beit Nabala. Yiftah [Brigade headquarters] must determine the method and inform [Operation] Dani HQ and the 8th Brigade.
2. Implement immediately.” The order was signed “Yitzhak R[abin].” A similar order, concerning Ramle, was apparently communicated to Kiryati Brigade headquarters at the same time. (Benny Morris, p. 207)

On July 16 1948 Aharon Cizling, the 1st Israeli Agriculture Minister, cautioned the Israeli cabinet (a few weeks after the ethnic cleansing of 60,000 people from Lydda and Ramla):

“We are embarking on a course that will most greatly endanger any hope of peaceful alliance with forces who could be our allies in the Middle East …. Hundreds of thousands of [Palestinian] Arabs who will be evicted from Palestine, even if they are to blame, and left hanging in the midair, will grow to hate us. If you do things in the heat of the war, in the midst of the battle, it’s one thing. But if after a month, you do it in cold blood, for political reason, in public, that is something altogether different.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 191)

And on the same subject, Cizling also said during a Cabinet meeting:

“I have to say that this phrase [regarding the treatment of Ramla’s inhabitants] is a subtle order to expel the [Palestinian] Arabs from Ramla. If I’d receive such an order this is how I would interpret it. An order given during the conquest which states that the door is open and that all [Palestinian] Arabs may leave, regardless of age, and sex, or they may stay, however, the army will not be responsible for providing food. When such things are said during actual conquest, at the moment of conquest, and after all that has already happened in Jaffa and other places. . . . I would interpret it as a warning: save yourself while you can get out.” (1949, The First Israelis, p. 27)

And also went on to describe his dismay at the looting of the Palestinian Ramla City (but not at the raping of Palestinian women), Cizling stated:

“. ..It’s been said that . ‘there were cases of rape in Ramla. I can forgive rape, but I will not forgive other acts which seem to me much worse. When they enter a town and forcibly remove rings from the fingers and jewelry from someone’s neck, that’s a very grave matter. … Many are guilty of it.” (1949, The First Israelis, p. 71-72)

All the Israelis who witnessed the events agreed that the expulsion of the inhabitants of Lydda and Ramle, under the hot July sun, was an extended episode of suffering for the Palestinian refugees, especially those from Lydda. Some were stripped by Israeli soldiers of their valuables as they left the town or at checkpoints along the way. An Israeli archeologist, known by Guttman, subsequently described the trek of the Palestinian refugees out of Lydda:

“A multitude of inhabitants walked one after another. Women walked burdened with packages and sacks on their heads. Mothers dragged children after them . . . Occasionally, warning shots were heard . . . Occasionally, you encountered a piercing look from one of the youngsters . . . in the column, and the look said: We have not yet surrendered. We shall return to fight you.” For Guttman, an Israeli archeologist, the spectacle conjured up “the memory of the exile of Israel [a the end of the Second Commonwealth, at Roman hands.]” (Benny Morris, p. 207)

A Palmach (the Israeli strike force) report, probably written by Yigal Allon soon after Operation Dani, stated that the expulsion of the Lydda and Ramla Palestinian inhabitants, besides relieving Tel Aviv of a potential, long-term threat, had:

“clogged the routes of the advance of the [Transjordan Arab] Legion and had foisted upon the Arab economy the problem of “maintaining another 45,000 souls . . . Moreover, the phenomenon of the flight of tens of thousands will no doubt cause demoralisation in every Arab area [the refugees] reach . . . This victory will yet have great effect on other sectors.” (Benny Morris, p. 211 & Israel: A History, p. 218)

And in response to report above, the Israeli MAPAM party co-leader, Meir Ya’ari, criticized Allon’s use of tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees to achieve a military strategic goal, he stated:

“Many of us are LOSING their [human] image . . How easily they speak of how it is possible and permissible to take women, children, and old men and to fill the road with them because such is the imperative of strategy. And this we say, the members of Hashomer Hatzair, who remember who used this means against our people during the Second World] war. . . . I am appalled.” (Benny Morris, p. 211)

Related Links

• The Washington Report: Expulsion of the Palestinians- Lydda and Ramlehin 1948
• Zionist FAQ: Palestinian people in 1948 left their homes based on the orders of their leaders
• “Our exodus from Lydda depicted in a series of art paintings” By Ismail Shammout
• Cleansing Jaffa: Detailed eyewitness account By Shukri Salameh

Source: Palestineremembered.com

Israeli authorities continued their destruction and desecration of Christian holy places like several Christian convents and churches on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. They looted the ornaments and church golden and silver objects and transformed those convents and churches into military posts for Jewish armed forces.

This is the statement of an eyewitness who reported about the church of St. Saviour on Mt. Zion. The interior of the Church of St. Saviour is a scene of total devastation. The carved and gilded altar has been wrecked, and an altar painting lies destroyed on the upper floor. The oil paintings that decorated the upper part of the north and south walls have been torn out of their frames leaving only tattered shreds of canvas. Many of the Kutahya titles, brought especially from Turkey by Armenian pilgrims in the early eighteenth century have been ripped from the walls; those that have not been stolen lie smashed on the ground, along with a tangled mass of broken church furniture. The valuable collection of old church vestments has completely disappeared. On the other hand, Israeli forces desecrated and vandalized the Armenian and the Greek orthodox cemeteries on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. Fourteen tombs of Christian patriarchs were smashed open and their contents desecrated.

The Catholic cemetery on Mt. Zion received the same treatment from the Zionists. In October 1953, Israeli forces destroyed the Christian village of Kafr Bur’om in Galilee together with its churches, schools, and other buildings and scattered the Christian inhabitants to other parts of Galilee.

On April 16th, 1954, the Zionists launched an attack against the cemetery of the Greek Catholic Community in Haifa. In July 1954, a group of Israelis attacked a Christian religious procession of the Carmelite Fathers and the Christian community of Haifa nears the cave of St. Elijah on Mt. Carmel near Haifa. The Christian religious procession was broken up, many of the crosses carried by the procession were smashed, and many Christians were injured.

On January 10, 1963, seventy Jews, mostly Yeshiva students, attacked the Finnish Christian Mission School in Jerusalem, smashed thirty windows and beat Mr. Risto Santala, the school pastor. Further up the Street of the Prophets, a car belonging to a Hebrew-Christian family was overturned and the plate glass windows of the Zion Mission shop run by the Reverend William Hall were smashed.

Source: Encyclopedia of the Palestine problema by Issa Nakhleh.

Government and Religious authorities carry on a constant campaign of persecution against parents who send their children to Christian schools.

This is an example of this campaign:

The Grand Rabbinate supported this campaign by an appeal in which it denounced the misdeeds of Christian Mission. According to Hatsofe newspaper December 2, 1953 the Grand rabbinate appeal states: “The Christian Missions open under the feet of Jewish children the precipice of assimilation and of change of religion. Those who by attending these schools let themselves be drawn change their religion become the enemies of our national existence. We want this appeal to reach all in Israel. We proclaim a special week for action and for information. We launch an appeal in to collect the necessary funds for the realization of this action.”

The newspaper Hatsofe supported the appeal by the Grand Rabbinate with an inflammatory racist .“This action must be carried out with all possible vigor until the impurity is destroyed by fire from the face of the earth.”

Large placards were displayed in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities stating: “Do you know that 2,000 children receive Christian education in Israel? Do you know that 400 preachers and Christian sent by 48 Christian missionary institutions were recruited for the new immigrants? Mr. Amos Eylon published an article in Ha’aretz on March 14, 1954 in which he stated:

“Government employees as well as those working in municipalities who send their children to Christian schools were obliged under threat of being fired to transfer their children to Jewish schools.”

A section was established in the Ministry of Religious Affairs for the object of fighting Christian missions. This section is sending spies into churches, monasteries, and Christian schools to detect who visit these Christian establishments and to take the names of all those who associate with , or send their children to Christian schools.

Source: Encyclopedia of the Palestine problema by Issa Nakhleh.

As far back as 1920 Zionists had declared their objective regarding Christian holy places in Palestine. In 1920 the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem denounced Zionist objectives in an address later published in the Church Times, London, in which he stated:

The Zionist Commission had been a very strong body; but it was not strong enough to control all its members, many of whom were extremists…They had behaved and spoken as if the country had already been given to them and was theirs to dispose of as they would. In ordinary conversation among Zionists at Jerusalem it had been asked “What shall be done with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre? Shall it be burned or razed to the ground?”

During the 1948 war, Zionists destroyed, desecrated and profaned Christian churches, convents and institutions throughout the occupied area of Palestine. These acts, together with the campaign against Christian missionaries, continue until today. Now that the Zionists occupied Jerusalem in the 1967 war, the last stage of their plan will be carried out when they are assured of their complete domination of the Holy City. Hundreds of Christian families were expelled from Jerusalem. In spite of the fact that the Zionist propagandists constantly proclaim their good intention towards Christian and Muslim holy places in Jerusalem, nothing will deter the Zionists from carrying out their fanatical program of ultimately eradicating Christianity from the Holy Land.

In July 1968, His Beatitude Maximos V Hakim, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, made a declaration in New York in which he expressed apprehension that Christianity could not survive in the Holy Land under existing conditions. He recalled certain events which he had witnessed since the creation of Israel in 1948. The Patriarch stated:

The Melchite church has suffered many losses at the hands of the Israelis. We lost churches in Damound, Somatat, Kafr Bur’om and Ikret, a village which the Israeli army destroyed on Christmas Day 1952…Many churches were damaged in the 1967 war, and many churches were desecrated by soldiers and men and women entering these Holy Places indecently dressed and with their dogs. My encounters with the Israeli government officials, particularly since the last war, have been completely disheartening…On June 21, 1967, I met with Pope Paul at the Vatican to discuss the Vatican stand on the situation and the problems facing the Christian community within Israel and the occupied territories. From the discussion I learned the Vatican offers 100% support for the U.N. resolutions on Jerusalem, particularly that the city’s status should be international rather than the object of any further discussions. Upon my return to Israel, I presented this stand to the government, and a high Israeli spokesman whom I prefer not to name for my own sake, made this remark: “Your Pope is a foolish man. He is the only one who believes in the United Nations. If the Pope has an army, let him send it. We will give up Jerusalem only in defeat.” Such an Israeli attitude combined with their restrictions upon the indigenous Arab Christian population cannot help but doom Christianity in the Holy Land.

The remarks made to His Beatitude Maximos V Hakim by the Israeli spokesman are almost a carbon copy of Stalin’s notorious question, “How many divisions has the Pope?”

The Christian population of Palestine, the descendents of the earliest followers of Christ, were the first Christians to recognize the anti-Christian bigotry built into the Zionist ideology. Having long dwelt in peace with Muslim and Jewish fellow citizens in Palestine, Palestinian Christians recognized that the Zionist colonists were a different breed, lacking the piety of Palestinian Jews. The peaceful cohabitation of Christians, Muslims and Jews in Palestine was disrupted by the militant ideologues propagating Zionism, and Palestinian Christians feared the growth of the Zionists presence in their native land and united with Muslims in opposing Zionism and the Zionist invasion of Palestine.

*Desecration of Christian Holy Places in 1948  

During the Palestine war of 1948-49, Zionist forces desecrated, profaned, destroyed and looted Christian Holy Places. The following is a list of churches, convents and institutions damaged by Zionists:

• The Hospice “Notre Dame de France,” a large part of which was destroyed as a result of the Jewish occupation

• The Convent of Reparatrice Sisters was set on fire and almost completely destroyed. It was occupied on May 15. Israelis fortified and used it as a main base to attack the Holy City

• The tower and church of the Monastery of the Benedictine Fathers were damaged as a result of having been occupied

• The Seminary of Ste. Anne was hit by two mortar bombs: the first on May 17, 1948, the second on May 19, 1948, destroying walls and wounding the refugees sheltered therein

• The church of St. Constantine and Helena which is contiguous to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was damaged on May 17, 1948, by a bomb, the fragments of which damaged also the dome of the Holy Sepulchre

• The American Orthodox Patriarchate was hit by about one hundred mortar bombs thrown by Zionists from the Monastery of the Benedictine Fathers on Mount Sion, and the bombs damaged St. Jacob’s Convent, the Archangels Convent and their two churches, their two Elementary and Seminary schools and their library. Eight persons among the refugees were killed and 120 wounded

• The entrance of the church of St. Mark belonging to the Syrian Orthodox, received on May 17, 1948 a mortar shell killing the monk Peter Saymy, secretary to the Bishop and wounding two other persons

• The Convent of St. George of the Greek Orthodox which is contiguous to the Greek Catholic Cathedral received on May 18, 1948 a mortar shell breaking the tiles and damaging the windows of the cathedral. It was occupied by the Zionists four days earlier

• The Convent of St. John of the Greek Orthodox, contiguous to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, received on its roof a mortar shell on May 23, 1948, and St. Abraham convent nearby was hit as well as St. Spiridon Convent. The Convent of St. John was occupied on May 18, 1948

• The Convent of the Archangel belonging to the Coptic Patriarchate, situated over the grotto of the Holy Cross, forming part of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, received on May 23, 1948 a mortar shell damaging its roof

• The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate was hit by mortar shells on May 23 and 24, 1948, wounding many refugees sheltered therein

• The big Franciscan convent (St. Saviour) situated near the Holy Sepulchre received mortar shells on May 19, 23, 24, and 28, 1948, causing damage to the orphanage, general secretariat, and hitting nearby houses, killing and wounding children sheltered therein

• The Latin Patriarchate received on May 23, 26, 27 and 28, 1948, mortar shells causing damage to the Patriarchal Palace, especially to the Cathedral

• The Greek Catholic Patriarchate was hit by mortar bombs on May 16 and 29, 1948, damaging the building and wounding some persons.

Source: Encyclopedia of the Palestine problema by Issa Nakhleh