Abu ¯  Na’i¯m: We used to consult with the Iraqi army. “So what do you think?” we would say. “Carry on” [they would reply]. “We will come next week. Next week”. Efrat: So they actually forced the men to stay and fight? Abu ¯  Na’i¯m: Yes, and they cheated them. They said—“look, do it. . . carry on fighting, hold on, next week we shall come”. And once there was a battle, in the place where a tower stands today in the mountains of Geva Carmel (Jaba’), so they called [the men of Ijzim], they had communication, the first communication, [they called] the Iraqi army—“send us reinforcements”. They [the Iraqis] said they’ll send airplanes. Airplanes indeed came, but bombed them. Abu¯  Na’i¯m meant that they waited for Iraqi planes and discovered that the planes were Jewish.  They  thought  the  airplanes  had  come  to  assist   them  and  therefore  revealed themselves to the pilots and that enabled the Israeli planes to target the villagers. He was hinting at the fact that the Jews tricked the villagers—the Jews made them think the airplanes were  Iraqi  and  then  bombed  them.  Shafi¯q  described  a  similar  deceit.  An  airplane  would approach the village but then fly towards the sea and drop a bomb there, as if targeting the Jewish settlement. Then, the plane would fly to the mountains to the east and drop a bomb there. When the people of the village came out to hail the Arab plane, a bomb was dropped on them. The Jews possibly knew when the villagers were expecting the Iraqi planes because the IDF was monitoring radio transmissions between the Arab ground fighters in Ijzim and the Iraqi forces in Jeni¯n. This may have enabled the Jews to trace the fighters accurately and explain Abu¯  Na’i¯m’s above-mentioned story of the bombing in Jaba’. The following is an intercepted  radio  transmission  between  the  desperate  little-triangle  fighters  and  the  Iraqi headquarters, dated 21 July, three days before the final attack on the village that led to its fall: 10:40. To H asan [of Ijzim] (2) From Madar [assumed by the IDF to be the village representative in Jeni¯n](1) 1  –  The Red Cross will reach you today. You must defend as strongly as you can until the Red Cross Committee comes. 2  –  When will the committee arrive? 1  –  It will arrive today. It is on its way to you. 2  –  The attack is still fierce. 1  –  We will inform  ra’i¯s  Khali¯l. If you wish, you can speak to him. 2  –  Let him speak to me. 1  –  I’ll go and call him. I have just been making inquiries about you. The committee will arrive in an hour. Stay in your trenches. 2  –  [unclear] 1  –  Just one hour. The representatives will reach you 2  –  [unclear] 1 – I could not sleep all night. We hear every bomb that falls on you. We have sent a radio warning to the Jews. 2  –  [unclear] 1  –  I am now speaking to you from Jeni¯n. I went there in order to speak on your behalf. 2  –  Insha ¯lla  [with God’s help] they will look upon it favorably. 1 – The committee will reach you before the Mundels⁴¹ reach you. Mu ¯sa is in the headquarters in Nablus and takes care of your matters. 2  –  We have been exposed.⁴² The villagers still talk of the Iraqi failure to come to their assistance. Their accusations of this  foreign  military  force  come  from  their  own  experience;  it  is  not  just  a  common amorphous  accusation  of  the  Arab  armies  who  promised  help  and  failed  to  supply  it.  In retrospect, the villagers lament the fact that they might have organized themselves better if they had known how limited was the assistance the Iraqis were willing to offer. THE IMPACT OF THE T ANT U^¯ RA MASSACRE AND THE FALL OF THE IJZIM The oral narratives, more than the army documents, disclose the atmosphere that prevailed during the ongoing months of guerilla fighting. A massacre was known to have taken place in May in the neighboring village of T ant u¯ra. T ant u¯ra was located on the beach a couple of kilometers south west of Ijzim and was captured by the Jewish Alexandroni unit, (which was ANTHROPOLOGICAL HISTORIES OF A PALESTINIAN VILLAGE 21