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‘Haaretz’ report suggests Arab villages were targeted before Nakba

From the history files: Haaretz reports on pre-Nakba spying on villages during the 1940s, “in preparation for a future conflict and as part of a more general project of creating files of target sites.”

The information was usually collected under the guise of a nature lesson aimed at getting to know the country, or for hikes that were common in that period. The scouts systematically built up a database of geographical, topographical and planning information about the villages, which included detailed descriptions of roads, neighborhoods, houses, public buildings, objects, wells, caves, wadis and so forth…

Vermel said in testimony he gave later, “I told myself that if we find ourselves in a war, we will have to conquer these villages … But did we know anything about them? Nothing, it turned out.”

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