| Tantura massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of the 1948 Palestine war and the Nakba | |
.png) Photograph of Tantura during the British Mandate | |
| Location | Tantura, Palestine |
| Date | 22 May 1948 |
| Target | Palestinian villagers |
| Deaths | Unknown. Estimates range from "dozens" to 200+ |
| Perpetrators | Haganah, Alexandroni Brigade |
The Tantura massacre took place on the night of 22/23 May 1948 during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, when Palestinian villagers were massacred by the Alexandroni Brigade of the Haganah. The massacre occurred after the surrender of the village of Tantura, a small village of roughly 1,500 people located near Haifa. The number of those killed is unknown, with estimates ranging from "dozens" to 200+.[1][2][3][a][b][c]
Oral testimonies by surviving Palestinians were met by skepticism. A corroborative 1998 thesis by an Israeli Haifa University graduate Theodore Katz, who interviewed survivors, was also met with denial. In a 2022 Israeli documentary film called Tantura, several Israeli veterans interviewed said they had witnessed a massacre at Tantura after the village had surrendered. In 2023, Forensic Architecture published its commissioned investigation of the area and concluded that there were three potential gravesites in the area of the Tel Dor beach that were connected to a massacre.
After the massacre, most of the village was destroyed and its residents were expelled, with many of the women and children being transported to Furaydis. The Israeli kibbutz and beach resort of Nahsholim was established on the site of the depopulated village. The victims were buried in a mass grave, which today serves as a car park for the nearby Tel Dor beach.
- ^ Hashem Abushama, According to Whose Archives?: The Tantura Massacre and Revisionist Israeli Historiography, January 30 2022, Institute for Palestine Studies. https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1652421 "There also remains a mass grave. [...] It reportedly contains between a few dozens to more than 200 buried corpses of Palestinian men who were massacred"
- ^ "In May 1948, more than 200 Palestinians were killed by the advancing Jewish militia in the coastal village of Tantura, south of Haifa." John Pilger, New Statesman, 6/3/2002, Vol. 131, Issue 4590
- ^ Blackwell, Sue. "Review Essay: States of Denial." Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal, vol. 6 no. 1, 2007, p. 113-118. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hls.2007.0016. "Ilan Pappé [...] has documented in detail the massacre of some 200 men, women and children at Tantura on 22–23 May 1948"
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