Michael Espersen: Fall of Lydda
The top general in charge of attacking Lydda was one Yigal Allon. In 1977, General Yitzhak Rabin admitted in an interview with Israeli historian Michael Bar Zohar that in discussion with Allon on the plan of attack of what to do about Lydda's Arab residents, David Ben Gurion instructed Allon with a wave of his hand and a verbal declaration to "expel them." General Rabin also admitted in a formerly censored portion of his own diary that David Ben Gurion had given the order to him personally, with a wave of his hand, to forcibly evacuate the Arab residents of Lydda.
The Israeli army complied willingly in the following days, with the days of July 9th to July 13th consisting of the majority of the expulsion. On each day, the town was invaded and assaulted by a veritable blitzkrieg on all sides; IDF air strikes pummeled the town, destroying homes, killing innocents, while Israeli half tracks and trucks armed with guns drove throughout the city shooting up buildings and putting down the slightest resistance with crushing brutality. The expulsion would not be better; in the words of General Yitzhak Rabin, one of the top ranked commanders of the assault, as he wrote them in his diary: ""'Driving out' is a term with a harsh ring. Psychologically, this was one of the most difficult actions we undertook. The population of Lod did not leave willingly. There was no way of avoiding the use of force and warning shots in order to make the inhabitants march the 10 to 15 miles to the point where they met up with the legion." According to Arab historian Aref al-Aref, on the forced march from Lydda to Jordanian-controlled territory, over 300 people died from exhaustion, never to reach their destination. After the residents were expelled, their homes were gradually taken by the Israeli government and handed over to new Israeli immigrants. According to Spiro Munayyer, the 1000 out of 50,000 Arabs who remained in Lydda after the mass expulsion were subject to military rule by Israel until 1966.
The expulsion from Lydda was, perhaps, the largest war crime of the 1948 Arab Israeli war, with the top levels of the Israeli government bearing direct responsibility for the act. This is a fact that has long been established by Israeli historians, Arab historians, but also the direct testimony of Palestinian survivors, who to this day are still not allowed to return to the land of their ancestors by Israel.