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April 13, 1948 Hadassah Convoy Massacre

Mt Scopus Hadassah Hospital Massacre April 13 1948“IF WE HAD NEEDED PROOF OF ITS IMPORTANCE [SHEIKH JARRAH], IT WAS PROVIDED IN THE HADASSAH MASSACRE, WHEN SEVENTY-SEVEN JEWISH DOCTORS, NURSES AND TEACHERS WERE KILLED OR BURNED ALIVE ON THE ROAD TO MOUNT SCOPUS.  We had been sending relief units to the Hebrew University and the Hadassah Hospital in regular convoys on the basis of assurances given personally by High Commissioner and the British Secretary of State for Colonies, Arthur Creech-Jones, that medical and civilian traffic to Mount Scopus would be protected by their Army and police forces.  The Hadassah convoy massacre of April 14 was one of the many reasons for the bitter feelings with which Jerusalem lived through the final days of British rule.

The convoy started at 9:30 am, made up of two ambulances, three armored buses, three trucks with food and hospital supplies and two small escort cars.  The responsible British police officer had given the usual assurance that the road was clear.  On the way from Sheikh Jarrah to Mount Scopus, the convoy struck a mine.  One ambulance and two buses were damaged and could not be operated.  The rear car turned around and managed to get away.  A hail of fire, including grenades and Molotov cocktails, hit the cars from both sides of the road.  The firing continued throughout the morning.

The attack took place less than two hundred yards from the British military post responsible for the safety of the road.  The soldiers watched the attack, but did nothing.  At 9:45 General Gordon H.A. Macmillian, who was the ranking British officer in Jerusalem, passed nearby in his car; later he said he had the impression the attack was ending.  Twice later, at 1pm and at 2pm, British military cars passes and were hailed by Dr. Chaim Yassky, director of the hospital.  Neither of them stopped.

When the Jewish Agency liaison officer appealed to British military headquarters to let us send Hagana men to the scene, he was told the Army had the situation in hand and would extricate the convoy.  A Hagana intervention would only make the fighting worse.  Finally, two Hagana cars which tried to reach the convoy were ambushed and two cars which tired to come down to help from Mount Scopus were mined, but all their occupants engaged the attacking Arabs.  At noon the Arabs were reinforced.  By 1:45 Dr. Judah Magnes, president of the university, telephoned General Macmillan with a desperate plea for help.  The reply was that military vehicles were trying to reach the scene but that a large battle had developed.  By three o’clock the two buses were set on fire and most of the passengers who had not already been killed were burned alive. 

The attack had lasted for seven hours.  It was 4:30 pm before the Arabs were finally driven off and the killed and wounded were taken out.  Only twenty-eight persons were saved, eight of these unhurt.  The seventy-seven dead included Drs. Chaim Yassky, Leonid Dolojansky and Moshe Ben-David, who were the founders of the new faculty of medicine at the university, Dr. Guenther Wolfsohn, the physicist, and Professor Enzo Bonaventura, head of the university’s department of psychology.

THE ATTACK HAD BEEN COMMANDED BY AN IRAQI OFFICER, IT WAS CLAIMED BY THE ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE, WHICH PRAISED THE MASSACRE AS A HEROIC EXPLOIT.  IT CENSURED THE BRITISH FOR THEIR LAST-MINUTE INTERVENTION: “HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR ARMY INTERFERENCE, NOT A SINGLE JEWISH PASSENGER WOULD HAVE REMAINED ALIVE.”

Source: Joseph, Dov The Faithful City. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960. (p. 74-75.)

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