Leaked 1967 war testimonies reveal Israeli war crimes

A damning investigation published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has unearthed previously classified archival documents, military records, and unpublished eyewitness accounts from Israeli soldiers detailing widespread war crimes, forced expulsions, and executions during and after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

The report, compiled by researcher Adam Raz ahead of the war's 59th anniversary, reveals that approximately 300,000 Arabs were systematically displaced from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. While some sanitized accounts of the war were published decades ago, these newly unsealed testimonies expose a raw, unchecked culture of violence where soldiers openly admitted that "human lives didn't matter" and that they operated under the belief that "there was no law,", News.Az reports, citing Anadolu Agency

Among the most harrowing disclosures are accounts of "punitive expeditions" in Gaza's refugee camps, where soldiers lined up and executed non-resisting civilians and prisoners. In the West Bank, troops received strict shoot-to-kill orders to prevent fleeing Palestinian refugees from crossing back over the Jordan River. When one soldier questioned if the order applied to families with crying babies, he was reportedly told by his superior, "Don’t be a girl." By September 1967, military records show nearly 150 Palestinians had been killed attempting to return home.

The investigation underscores that this mass displacement was not merely a byproduct of active combat, but a deliberate political strategy. Senior Israeli political and military leaders viewed the departure of Arab residents as highly desirable and actively facilitated it. In one instance, the 8,000 residents of the Latrun villages were forced out, their homes completely demolished by bulldozers, and the land repurposed into what is now Canada Park. Similarly, in the captured Syrian Golan Heights, around 120,000 Syrians were expelled, and an Israeli commander admitted to ordering bulldozers to flatten entire villages "so there would be nowhere to return."

The files also include a prophetic, previously unpublished 1967 letter from Theodor Meron, then the legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Meron explicitly warned top officials that the forced expulsion of civilians constituted "a serious violation of the Geneva Convention" and would trigger severe international legal repercussions. Despite these warnings, leadership chose to move forward with the measures to secure control over the newly occupied territories—initiating an era of displacement that Palestinians remember as the Naksa (the setback).

News.Az 

By Aysel Mammadzada