December 7, 2022

Ramallah / Qais Abu Samra / Anadolu

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday that the facts presented in the film Tantura confirm the credibility of the Palestinian narrative regarding Israeli massacres committed against Palestinians in 1948 and the years that followed.

In statements published by the official Palestinian news agency, Abbas said: “The facts revealed in the film once again refute the Israeli narrative, which for many years denied the commission of these massacres and worked to erase their traces.”

He stressed the importance of these firsthand testimonies, particularly because they came from people who participated in carrying out the massacre, and praised the courage of those who sought the truth and brought it to the attention of the world.

At the beginning of this year, Israeli media revealed the existence of a mass grave containing Palestinians from the village of Tantura, in northern Palestine, who were killed by armed Zionist organizations in 1948.

The massacre was brought to wider attention through a documentary by Jewish director Alon Schwarz, which includes testimonies from soldiers who participated in carrying it out.

The film examines the findings of Israeli researcher Teddy Katz, who conducted research and collected more than 100 hours of personal testimonies indicating that nearly 300 residents of the village were killed. Other testimonies put the death toll at 400.

The Tantura massacre took place on the night of May 22–23, 1948, and was documented by Palestinian historians. However, this was the first time Israeli sources and participants had publicly confirmed that it had occurred.

Palestinians say that armed Jewish groups carried out numerous massacres in Palestinian villages during the 1948 war in order to force their inhabitants to leave.

Palestinians refer to these events as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” which resulted in the displacement of Palestinians from their villages and cities and the establishment of Israel on Palestinian lands.