Israeli Attack on Qibya
(October 13, 1953)
The Israeli attack on Qibya, Jordan,
came against the backdrop of repeated cross-border attacks by Jordanians
on Israeli civilians in the years after Israel's War
of Independence. After the June 1949 cease-fire between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Jordan, with whom Israel shared its
longest international border, the Mixed Armistice Commission and United
Nations Truce Supervision Organization were set up to lessen the danger
of violence along Israel's borders. Both failed. Between June 1949 and
October 1954, Israel accused Jordan of violating the armistice agreement
1,612 times, killing at least 124 Israelis, wounding hundreds more.
On October 13, 1953, Jordanian terrorists infiltrated the Israeli border and threw a grenade into a house, killing
a mother and two children in Tiryat Yehuda. In an effort to prevent
further attacks and protect its borders, Israel launched a reprisal
raid on Qibiya, a Jordanian town across the border from Tiryat Yehuda.
Unit 101, led by then Colonel Ariel
Sharon, destroyed 50 homes, killing 69 Jordanian civilians who were
hidden inside and had gone unnoticed. Although Sharon claimed he did
not know the houses were occupied, the event still shocked and embarrassed
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
Nevertheless, the attack, and other such reprisal raids on Jordanian
terrorist and army posts brought relative quiet to Israel's Jordanian
border.
Sources: Shipler, David. Arab
and Jew. NY: Penguin Books, 1987. |