User:Mikhailov Kusserow/Lydda
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The exodus of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramla, also known as the Lydda death march,[1] took place in July 1948 during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when 50,000-70,000[2] Palestinians fled or were expelled from the cities, when Israeli troops moved in.[3] According to an Israeli army report, the expulsions, the order for which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin,[4]averted an Arab threat to Tel Aviv, and clogged the roads with refugees, thereby thwarting an Arab Legion advance.[5]
Ramla's residents were mostly bussed to Al-Qubab, from where they walked to Arab Legion lines in Latrun and Salbit.[6] The people of Lydda had no transport: they walked six kilometers (four miles) to Beit Nabala, then 11 kilometers (seven miles) to Barfiliya, in temperatures of 30-35 °C (86-95 °F), carrying whatever possessions they could take with them.[6][7] From there, the Arab Legion helped most of them reach a refugee camp in Ramallah some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away.[8]
Around 290-450 Palestinians and 10 Israeli soldiers were killed during the conquest of Lydda;[9] the death toll in Ramla is unknown but presumed much lower because the city surrendered immediately. The number of refugees who died during the march is also unknown: figures range from "a handful, and perhaps dozens" to 355, primarily from exhaustion and dehydration, though eyewitnesses also said refugees were killed for refusing to hand over their valuables to Israeli soldiers.[10]
The expulsions accounted for one-tenth of the overall Arab exodus from Palestine, an event commemorated in the Arab world, along with the anniversary of the creation of Israel, as al-Nakba (lit. "the catastrophe").[7]