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-- expulsion meant permanent displacement;
-- Latroun was to be part of Israel and all traces of their former land destroyed, except in their collective memories;
-- village destruction was a punitive land grab accomplished by bulldozing and blasting with explosives, not the result of war; reportedly, some residents who remained were buried under their homes, a willful act of murder;
-- destruction was complete, including homes, schools, mosques, archaeological landmarks, a medical clinic, wells, an agricultural association, and a police station - everything leveled to Judaize it.
One participating soldier said it was "the blackest hour of my life. Things were done here which should not have been done, and I participated in an action that I shouldn't have been part of." Others felt the same way as they witnessed innocent civilians, including the sick and elderly, persecuted and displaced. Those too frail to leave were buried alive, an act too horrifying for some to bear.
Dr. Moussa Abu Ghosh remembered his cousin, Hasan Shukri, buried beneath his home:
He "was nineteen, an invalid, paralyzed from polio. They found his wheelchair outside and found his body underneath the house." Others recalled similar incidents, but how many is unknown, perhaps dozens of civilians willfully murdered, guilty of being Arabs on land Israel wanted and took.
After the war, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol told Israeli ministers:
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