The Yehud attack was an attack on a civilian house in the village of

Yehud Yehud may refer to: * Yehud, the Levantine province of the Neo-Babylonian Empire * Yehud Medinata, the Levantine province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire * Yehud, the modern-day Israeli city See also *Yahud (disambiguation) *Yehudi (disambiguatio ...

carried out by a

Palestinian fedayeen Palestinian fedayeen () are militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians consider the fedayeen to be Resistance movement, freedom fighters, while most Israelis consider them to be Pa ...

squad on 12 October 1953. Three Israeli Jewish

civilians A civilian is a person who is not a member of an armed force. It is illegal under the law of armed conflict to target civilians with military attacks, along with numerous other considerations for civilians during times of war. If a civilian enga ...

, a mother and her infant children, were killed in the attack.

The attack

On Monday, 12 October 1953, a Palestinian Fedayeen squad infiltrated into Israel from

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

. The militants reached the Jewish village Yehud, located about east of

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

, where they threw a

grenade A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a Shell (projectile), shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A mod ...

into a civilian house. A Jewish woman, Suzanne Kinyas, and her two children (a 3-year-old girl and a -year-old boy) were killed. The tracks of the perpetrators led to the Palestinian village of

Rantis Rantis () is a Palestinian town in the West Bank, located in the northwestern Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, 33 kilometers northwest of Ramallah. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 3,179 in 2017 ...

, then under the control of

, located about five miles north of

Qibya Qibya () is a Palestinian village in the West Bank, located northwest of Ramallah and exactly north of the large Israeli city of Modi'in. It is part of the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, and according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Sta ...

. The attack shocked the Israeli public, both because it was the first terror attack committed in the center of Israel and because the victims of the attack were a woman and her infant children, who were killed in their sleep.

Israeli retaliation

Although the commander of the

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

(as the

Jordanian Armed Forces The Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) (, romanized: ''Al-Quwwat Al-Musallaha Al-Urduniyya''), also referred to as the Arab Army (, ''Al-Jaysh Al-Arabi''), are the military forces of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. They consist of the ground forces, ...

were known at the time),

Glubb Pasha Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM (16 April 1897 – 17 March 1986), known as Glubb Pasha (; and known as Abu Hunaik by the Jordanians), was a British military officer who led and trained Transj ...

, promised that Jordan would catch the perpetrators and bring them to justice, on the morning of 13 October a decision was made by the

Israeli Prime Minister The prime minister of Israel (, Hebrew abbreviation: ; , ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief executive of the State of Israel. Israel is a parliamentary republic with a president as the head of state. The presiden ...

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

, and the

Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supportin ...

Mordechai Maklef Mordechai (Motke) Maklef (or Makleff) (; 19 January 1920 – 22 February 1978) was the third Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and later, director-general of many important public companies in the Israeli economy. Early life ...

, deputy chief of staff

Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan (; May 20, 1915 – October 16, 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of General Staff (Israel), Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defe ...

and acting

defense minister A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divid ...

Pinhas Lavon Pinhas Lavon (; 12 July 190424 January 1976) was an Israeli politician, minister and labor leader, best known for the Lavon Affair. Early life Lavon was born Pinhas Lubianiker in the small city of Kopychyntsi in the Galicia region of Austria ...

, of retaliation in response to the Yehud attack. About 130 IDF soldiers participated in the

reprisal A reprisal is a limited and deliberate violation of international law to punish another sovereign state that has already broken them. Since the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (AP 1), reprisals in the laws of war are extremel ...

codenamed ''Operation Shoshana'' (after the three-year-old girl killed in the Yehud attack), which was commanded by

Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon ( ; also known by his diminutive Arik, ; 26 February 192811 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the prime minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. Born in Kfar Malal in Mandatory Palestin ...

. The IDF force arrived at the village of

, threw grenades and fired through the windows and doors of the houses. Then blew up 45 houses, a

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

, and a

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

. About 60 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed.Benny Morris, ''Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez War'', Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 258-9. The act was condemned by the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

, the

UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

, and by Jewish communities worldwide.

Avi Shlaim Avi Shlaim (, ; born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli and British historian of Iraqi Jewish descent. He is one of Israel's " New Historians", a group of Israeli scholars who put forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and Isr ...

writes: "The Qibya massacre unleashed against Israel a storm of international protest of unprecedented severity in the country's short history."

References

External links

Jordan lets Israelis track killer of 3
- Published on

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

on 14 October 1953 {{Authority control Terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians before 1967 Terrorist attacks attributed to Palestinian militant groups Child murder in Israel Terrorist incidents in Israel in 1953 1953 murders in Israel Palestinian Fedayeen insurgency Grenade attacks in Israel Explosions in 1953 Building bombings in Israel Mass murder in 1953 20th-century mass murder in Israel 1950s building bombings