Shubaki family assassination

The Shubaki family assassination on 19 November 1947 was the assassination by the Lehi, a Zionist paramilitary and terrorist organization, of five members of the Shubaki family in Mandatory Palestine, as punishment for one member of the family possibly having acted as an informant for the British police.[1]

It was the first violence involving Palestinian Arabs for three months (the violence during the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine had primarily been between Jewish and British forces); two days after the attacks the New York Herald Tribune reported that both sides feared that the killings might spark retaliation by Arabs against Jews.[2]

Buildup to the assassination

On 11 November 1947, in the final stages of the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, the Lehi held a secret course on weapons for their youth group. British intelligence were aware of the meeting, and surrounded the building. A shootout ensued, five members of Lehi were killed by the British, and the rest were either wounded or arrested.[1]

Lehi retaliated with terrorist attacks against the British:[3]

  • On 12 November 1947, Lehi members killed one British soldier and wounded three near Haifa
  • On 13 November 1947, Lehi members attacked patrons at the Ritz coffee shop in Jerusalem, injuring 28 people
  • On 15 November 1947, Lehi members killed two British policemen in Jerusalem

Lehi leader Nathan Yellin-Mor led an investigation into how the British knew about the meeting on 11 November. The Palestinian Arab Shubaki family lived nearby the meeting place, and Lehi concluded that they must have acted as informants. Lehi decided to kill members of the family in order to punish the family and to warn Arabs throughout Palestine not to help the British.[3]

The assassination

At 4:30am on 19 November 1947, ten Lehi members armed with submachine guns entered the village of Arab al-Shubaki (Arabic: عرب الشباكي), situated between the Jewish towns of Herzeliya and Ra'anana (with whom they are thought to have had good relations).[3]

The Lehi militants were dressed as police, and told the head of the village to gather all the men in the village and select five of them. They took the unarmed men to a nearby field and executed them.[3]

The victims were:[3]

  • Ahmed Salameh Shubaki (50 years old)
  • Wadia Shubaki (25 years old)
  • Sammy Shubaki (23 years old)
  • Sami Shubaki (23 years old)
  • Sabar Ahmed Shubaki (27 years old)

Aftermath

Arab militants retaliated approximately ten days later with the Fajja bus attacks;[4][5] immediately after the bus attacks a flyer was posted on walls in Jaffa explaining that the bus attacks were revenge for the Shubaki assassinations.[6]

References
  1. Ben-Yehuda, N. (2012). Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice. SUNY series in Deviance and Social Control. State University of New York Press. p. 250. ISBN 978-0-7914-9637-4. Retrieved 2022-04-17.
  2. Terrorist Jews Execute 4 in Arab Family, NY Herald Tribune, Nov. 21, 1947: "The shootings were the first since August involving Arabs and although there were no signs of it tonight people on both sides feared they might bring an attack by Arabs on Jews somewhere in the country to avenge the Arab deaths."
  3. Ben-Yehuda, N. (2012). Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice. SUNY series in Deviance and Social Control. State University of New York Press. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-7914-9637-4. Retrieved 2022-04-17.
  4. Morris, R.F.T.I.B.; Morris, B.; Clancy-Smith, J.A.; Benny, M.; Gershoni, I.; Owen, R.; Tripp, C.; Sayigh, Y.; Tucker, J.E. (2004). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge Middle East Studies. Cambridge University Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-521-00967-6. Traditionally, Zionist historiography has cited these attacks as the first acts of Palestinian violence against the partition resolution. But it is probable that the attacks were not directly linked to the resolution – and were a product either of a desire to rob Jews... or of a retaliatory cycle that had begun with a British raid on a LHI training exercise (after an Arab had informed the British about the exercise), that resulted in several Jewish dead... The LHI retaliated by executing five members of the beduin Shubaki clan near Herzliya...; and the Arabs retaliated by attacking the buses on 30 Nov....
  5. Radai, Itamar (2015). Palestinians in Jerusalem and Jaffa, 1948: A Tale of Two Cities. Routledge Studies on the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Taylor & Francis. p. 237. ISBN 978-1-317-36805-2. Retrieved 2022-04-17. In November they again strove to cool tempers, following an attack on a Jewish bus on its way to Holon, in retaliation against the killing of five young men of the Shubaki family by LEHI gunmen (who were in turn taking revenge because one of the members of the family had informed to the British about LEHI activities).
  6. Morris, B. (2009). 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-300-15112-1. Retrieved 2022-04-17. …the majority view in the HIS—supported by an anonymous Arab flyer posted almost immediately on walls in Jaffa—was that the attackers were driven primarily by a desire to avenge an LHI raid ten days before on a house near Raganana belonging to the Abu Kishk bedouin tribe.
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