Friday, January 25, 2008
Dave has continued his effective live-blogging of events, including links to further information on the terror attack that killed a Jerusalem area border guard, and a second terror attack on a Jewish religious school at Kfar Etzion. Dave notes this interesting history of the Etzion area:
On May 12, 1948, two days before the proclamation of the State of Israel, thousands of Arabs and Arab Legionnaires attacked the Etzion Bloc. The fighting went on for three long days, and 30 defenders were killed. On Friday, the day that the state was proclaimed, they could no longer hold out. They surrendered. In the massacre of Kfar Etzion, the Arabs murdered 127 men and women. Bodies lay in the fields for a year-and-a-half, until Transjordan allowed Israel to retrieve the corpses and bury them at Mount Herzl. The remainder were taken prisoner to Transjordan. The four kibbutzim were totally destroyed. Two hundred and forty settlers, Haganah and Palmah fighters were killed at the Etzion Bloc during five-and-a-half months of war.
