Utilisateur:Ceedjee/Exode palestinien de Lydda et Ramle
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The exodus 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 Palestinians fled or were expelled from the cities and 25 nearby villages,[2] as Israeli troops moved in.[3][4] The expulsions—the orders for which were signed by Yitzhak Rabin and issued by David Ben-Gurion or Yigal Allon[5]—averted a long-term Arab threat to Tel Aviv, thwarted an Arab Legion advance by clogging the roads with refugees, and caused demoralization in other Arab cities, in the view of the Israeli army.[6]
Ramla's residents were mostly bussed to al-Qubab, from where they walked to Arab Legion lines in Latrun and Salbit. 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. From there, the Arab Legion helped most of them reach a refugee camp in Ramallah some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away[7],[8].
Around 290–450 Palestinians and 9–10 Israeli soldiers were killed during the battle to take Lydda, and in violence that followed.[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 as al-Nakba (lit. "the catastrophe")[11].