Shubaki family assassination

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Shubaki family assassination
Part of the Intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine, the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine and Jewish extremist terrorism
LocationArab al-Shubaki, Palestine
Date19 November 1947
4:30 am
Targetsuspected informants
Attack type
Reprisal operation, summary execution
WeaponSubmachine guns
Deaths5 unarmed adult men of the Shubaki family
PerpetratorsLehi
No. of participants
10 militants
MotiveCollective punishment, deterrence of Palestinians
ChargesNone

The Shubaki family assassination was the summary execution of five adult members of the Shubaki family in the village of Arab al-Shubaki, Mandatory Palestine on 19 November 1947 by Lehi, a Zionist paramilitary and militant organization, on suspicions that the men had acted as informants for the British police.[1]

The attack followed a period of relative calm for several months, during which Zionist violence was almost exclusively directed at the British presence rather than Palestinians, raising fears of retaliation against Yishuv.[2] Eleven days later there was indeed a retaliatory attack killing seven of them, which is widely regarded as having sparked the Civil War.[3]

Buildup to the assassination[edit]

"Lehi Children" incident and the Lehi insurgency against the British[edit]

On 11 November 1947, in the final stages of the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, British intelligence were made aware that the Lehi was holding a firearms course for young members in Ra'anana, and surrounded the building. The British respondents shot dead five members of Lehi, with no British deaths or injuries,[1] in what is known as the Lehi Children [he] Affair. According to eyewitness testimonies and the Lehi account, four unarmed teenage members aged 15–18 were fatally shot along with their 19-year-old instructor as they tried to run away from the house, and two teenagers aged 16–17 years were left severely wounded. This is in contrast to the account given by the British police, which maintained that the victims were shot because they were armed and the officers under "immediate danger." Police files that were released to the public later in 2021 indicated that the order to raid the house had been approved directly from the British government in London. While the police records do state that the British were under danger, it does not mention at what moment the officers started shooting. It also confirms that the victims were already running out the building before they were killed.[4][5][6]

Lehi retaliated with terrorist attacks against the British:[7]

  • On 12 November 1947, Lehi members killed one British soldier and wounded three near Haifa
  • On 13 November 1947, Lehi members attacked patrons at the Ritz coffee shop in Jerusalem, injuring 28 people
  • On 15 November 1947, Lehi members killed two British policemen in Jerusalem

Planning of the assassination[edit]

Lehi leader Nathan Yellin-Mor led an investigation into how the British knew about the meeting on 11 November. The Lehi investigation concluded that members of the Palestinian Arab Shubaki family, which lived close to the Lehi house in Ra'anana, had informed the British authorities about the site's location. Lehi decided to kill members of the family in order to punish the family and to warn Arabs throughout Palestine not to help the British.[7]

The assassination[edit]

At 4:30am on 19 November 1947, ten Lehi members armed with submachine guns entered the village of Arab al-Shubaki (Arabic: عرب الشباكي), situated between the Jewish towns of Herzeliya and Ra'anana (with whom they are thought to have had good relations).[7]

The Lehi militants were dressed as police, and told the mukhtar (village head) to gather all the men in the village and select five of them. They took the unarmed men to a nearby field and executed them.[7]

The victims were:[7]

  • Ahmed Salameh Shubaki (50 years old)
  • Wadia Shubaki (25 years old)
  • Sammy Shubaki (23 years old)
  • Sami Shubaki (23 years old) (cousin)
  • Sabar Ahmed Shubaki (27 years old, a cousin))[8]

Aftermath[edit]

On 21 November, Lehi issued a statement in which they assumed responsibility for the assassinations. The statement, directed at "our Arab brothers", stressed that the "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel" committed these murders because they suspected Shubaki family members to have tipped off the Palestine Police Force, claiming it had nothing to do with them being Muslim Arabs. Lehi published the names of further residents who they accused of supporting British rule, threatening to kill every one of them who doesn't cease their government support.[7]

In retaliation to this massacre, seven Yishuv were shot and killed on 30 November 1947 on two busses near Fajja, with flyers appearing shortly after explaining the killings with the Shubaki family massacre.[9][10][11][12][13] These events are widely regarded as marking the beginning of the Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.[14][15]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Ben-Yehuda, N. (2012). Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice. SUNY series in Deviance and Social Control. State University of New York Press. p. 250. ISBN 978-0-7914-9637-4. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  2. ^ Terrorist Jews Execute 4 in Arab Family, NY Herald Tribune, Nov. 21, 1947: "The shootings were the first since August involving Arabs and although there were no signs of it tonight people on both sides feared they might bring an attack by Arabs on Jews somewhere in the country to avenge the Arab deaths."
  3. ^ Moris, Beni (2004). The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 139. ISBN 9780521009676. A British raid on a Lehi training exercise (after an Arab had informed the British about the exercise) resulted in several Jewish dead... Lehi retaliated by executing five members of the beduin Shubaki clan near Herzliya...; and the Arabs retaliated by attacking the buses on 30 November.
  4. ^ "Police covered up deaths in Mandatory Palestine, new documents show". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 31 July 2021. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  5. ^ Radice, Orlando (29 July 2021). "British Mandate forces 'covered up' the killing of Jewish children". The Jewish Chronicle. Archived from the original on 22 May 2023. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  6. ^ Eichner, Itamar (16 April 2021). "Revealed: How UK covered up killings of Jews in pre-state Palestine". Ynetnews. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Ben-Yehuda, N. (2012). Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice. SUNY series in Deviance and Social Control. State University of New York Press. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-7914-9637-4. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  8. ^ Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice, State University of New York Press, 2012 ISBN 978-0-791-49637-4 pp.249-250.
  9. ^ "This Day in Jewish History / Civil War Breaks Out in Palestine". Haaretz. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
  10. ^ Times, Sam Pope Brewerspecial To the New York (1 December 1947). "PALESTINE'S ARABS KILL SEVEN JEWS, CALL 3-DAY STRIKE; Buses Fired On From Ambush -- Higher Committee Adopts Plans Against Partition MOSLEM WORLD INDIGNANT Flag Torn Down as Mob Attacks U.S. Legation in Damascus -- Holy War Threatened PALESTINE'S ARABS KILL SEVEN JEWS TROUBLE ERUPTS IN PALESTINE AND SYRIA". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  11. ^ Rotberg, Robert I. (2006). Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History's Double Helix. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21857-5.
  12. ^ Radai, Itamar (2015). Palestinians in Jerusalem and Jaffa, 1948: A Tale of Two Cities. Routledge Studies on the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Taylor & Francis. p. 237. ISBN 978-1-317-36805-2. Retrieved 17 April 2022. In November they again strove to cool tempers, following an attack on a Jewish bus on its way to Holon, in retaliation against the killing of five young men of the Shubaki family by LEHI gunmen (who were in turn taking revenge because one of the members of the family had informed to the British about LEHI activities).
  13. ^ Morris, B. (2009). 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-300-15112-1. Retrieved 17 April 2022. …the majority view in the HIS—supported by an anonymous Arab flyer posted almost immediately on walls in Jaffa—was that the attackers were driven primarily by a desire to avenge an LHI raid ten days before on a house near Raganana belonging to the Abu Kishk bedouin tribe.
  14. ^ Resolution 181 (II). Future government of Palestine A/RES/181(II)(A+B) 29 November 1947 Archived 17 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Morris, R.F.T.I.B.; Morris, B.; Clancy-Smith, J.A.; Benny, M.; Gershoni, I.; Owen, R.; Tripp, C.; Sayigh, Y.; Tucker, J.E. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6. Traditionally, Zionist historiography has cited these attacks as the first acts of Palestinian violence against the partition resolution. But it is probable that the attacks were not directly linked to the resolution – and were a product either of a desire to rob Jews... or of a retaliatory cycle that had begun with a British raid on a LHI training exercise (after an Arab had informed the British about the exercise), that resulted in several Jewish dead... The LHI retaliated by executing five members of the beduin Shubaki clan near Herzliya...; and the Arabs retaliated by attacking the buses on 30 Nov....
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