Operation Karameh: Israeli Orders, Civilian Warnings, and the Targeting of Fatah Forces in 1968 - El-Farrah championing false "genocide" accusation

Operation Karameh: Israeli Orders, Civilian Warnings, and the Targeting of Fatah Forces in 1968

Historical analysis based on contemporary reporting, later historical works, and archival sources.

Introduction

The Israeli operation against Karameh in Jordan on March 21, 1968, followed a period of escalating Arab terror attacks across the Jordan River and, most immediately, the March 18 destruction of an Israeli school bus full of children by a land mine. Two people were killed and 28 were wounded. Three days later, Israeli forces crossed the Jordan River and attacked the Arab Palestinian terror Fatah infrastructure centered in the Jordanian town of Karameh.

Sources provide evidence concerning the instructions given to Israeli troops regarding civilians, the warning issued before the operation, the character of Karameh as a Fatah base, and the subsequent movement of Palestinian guerrillas toward the Salt area.

Contemporary Israeli reporting stated that the purpose of the operation was to strike Fatah bases and personnel operating from Jordan. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on March 22 that Chief of Staff Chaim Bar-Lev described the objective as eliminating centers and members of El Fatah operating against Israeli targets. He also stated that the operation had destroyed Fatah bases at Karameh, Saffi, and Hirbet Hinzir. Jewish Telegraphic Agency archive.

The Background to the Operation

Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Fatah and other Palestinian armed organizations increasingly operated from Jordanian territory. According to Herzog and Gazit (2005), Palestinian organizations that could no longer maintain effective bases in the West Bank moved across the Jordan River to the East Bank, from which they conducted operations against Israel and subsequently withdrew into Jordan.

The Jordan Valley consequently became an increasingly active military zone. Palestinian attacks and Jordanian artillery activity created a continuing security problem for Israeli forces and communities along the border.

The immediate trigger for the March operation was the March 18 land-mine attack on an Israeli school bus. Becker (2014) records that two people were killed and 28 were injured. Reeve (2011) likewise describes the attack as the event preceding the Israeli decision to strike the Fatah base at Karameh.

Warning Civilians Before the Attack

Several accounts state that Israeli forces issued a warning before entering Karameh. Becker (2014) writes that Israeli forces dropped pamphlets giving approximately two hours' warning of the intended raid so that Jordanian villagers and Palestinian non-combatants could move out of the way.

Reeve (2011) similarly states that leaflets were dropped over the region warning civilians to leave before Israeli troops attacked.

Thus, the evidence supports the existence of an advance warning, but the documented period in these sources is measured in hours rather than three days.

The chronology can therefore be summarized as follows:

• March 18, 1968: An Israeli school bus was destroyed by a land mine, killing two people and injuring 28.
• March 21, 1968: Israeli forces launched the Karameh operation.
• Before the attack: Leaflets were reportedly dropped warning civilians to leave. Becker and Reeve describe the warning as approximately two hours.

Karameh Had Become a Major Fatah Base

Herzog and Gazit (2005) describe Karameh as having been almost completely evacuated of its civilian population by the time of the operation. In their account, the town was largely occupied by units belonging to Palestinian organizations and contained a concentration of headquarters and military infrastructure.

An Israeli presentation by Ambassador Yosef Tekoah (1968) likewise characterized Karameh as having ceased to function principally as a civilian settlement and having been transformed into a major Fatah base. Tekoah stated that there were very few civilians remaining.

A contemporary Associated Press report published in The Montreal Gazette similarly quoted the Israeli government as saying that only a small civilian population remained and that Fatah maintained multiple headquarters, training, supply, and personnel facilities in the area.

Orders Concerning Civilians

One of the clearest pieces of evidence concerning the intended treatment of civilians comes from Israeli operational orders reported by journalist Amir Oren (2011) in Haaretz, based on military documents and interviews concerning the operation.

According to the documents, Southern Command chief Chaim Bar-Lev instructed commanders before the operation that women, children, and elderly people were not to be killed. The instructions emphasized that civilians were to be left alone unless an individual took up a weapon and participated in the fighting.

An appendix to the operational orders reportedly stated that women and children were not to be harmed and that measures were to be taken to protect them. The same orders distinguished between civilians and armed men, directing Israeli troops to engage men carrying weapons.

This account is reinforced by contemporary Israeli reporting. On April 4, 1968, an official Israeli statement published in the Congressional Record stated that IDF soldiers had received strict orders not to harm civilians, women, and children.

The contemporary Jewish Telegraphic Agency report from March 22 also quoted Bar-Lev as stating that the objective was Fatah and that, to the best of his knowledge, no civilians, specifically no women or children, had been hit.

These sources provide evidence for an explicit distinction in Israeli operational instructions between civilians and armed combatants.

The Instruction to Target Armed Fatah Personnel

The documentary account reported by Oren provides further detail about the intended rules of engagement.

Colonel Asher Levy reportedly emphasized that only Fatah members who were carrying weapons and offering resistance with firearms were to be killed. Fatah members who had abandoned their weapons, as well as civilians, were not to be harmed.

Consequently, a precise formulation is preferable to the broader statement that "only terrorists were targeted." The reported instruction specifically concerned armed Fatah personnel carrying weapons and offering armed resistance.

This distinction is significant because Karameh was not merely a conventional military target. Israeli forces encountered Palestinian fighters, Jordanian military forces, and a residual civilian population. The operational instructions therefore attempted to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

Young Residents Were Reportedly Forcibly Recruited

An important detail in the Israeli military intelligence assessment concerns the status of young residents of Karameh who were reportedly compelled to join the Palestinian armed organizations.

In his 2011 Haaretz account, Amir Oren reports on a post-operation discussion involving Maj. Gen. Aharon Yariv, the head of Israeli Military Intelligence. Yariv explained that, in the days preceding Operation Karameh, Israeli intelligence had received information indicating that Fatah personnel in Karameh had been significantly reinforced. The initial reports estimated that there were hundreds of additional Fatah members in the area.

After the operation, however, Israeli intelligence concluded that the reinforcement was considerably larger than initially estimated. According to Yariv's account, the earlier intelligence reports had failed to include young residents of the village who had been forcibly recruited by the Palestinian organizations. Consequently, the number of armed or potentially armed personnel encountered by Israeli forces was greater than the pre-operation intelligence estimate.

“Afterwards, it emerged that the reinforcements were not in the hundreds, but numbered far more, because the reports had not included young residents of the village who were forcibly recruited by the terrorist organizations.”

— Aharon Yariv, as reported by Amir Oren in Haaretz (2011)

According to the Israeli intelligence account, Palestinian organizations had compelled some young residents to participate in their forces.

The point also helps explain why Israeli pre-operation intelligence underestimated the number of Fatah personnel in the area. The intelligence estimate apparently counted known Fatah reinforcements but did not adequately account for local young men who had been compelled to join the organizations.

This account should be considered alongside the reported Israeli operational orders, which instructed troops to distinguish between civilians and armed personnel. Oren reports that the orders specified that women and children were not to be harmed and that men carrying weapons were to be killed. He also reports that Colonel Asher Levy later emphasized that Fatah members who had dropped their weapons, as well as civilians, were not to be harmed.

Source: Oren, A. (2011, May 13). Debacle in the desert. Haaretz. Archived Haaretz article .

A contemporary Associated Press report published in The Montreal Gazette also reported allegations that Fatah maintained a prison for young men who refused to join its ranks. Such claims should be treated as contemporary Israeli assertions rather than as uncontested historical fact.

In addition, it was reported that Y. Arafat fled after distributing arms.

Women and Children During Searches of Homes

The reported operational instructions did not simply distinguish between armed and unarmed men. They specifically addressed the treatment of women and children during the operation.

According to the account reported by Oren (2011), women and children were to be protected and kept away from the fighting. The instructions provided that women and children should not be harmed and that measures should be taken to prevent harm to them.

This is consistent with the broader reported instruction that civilians were to be left alone unless they themselves took up weapons and participated in the fighting.

The Battle Itself

On March 21, Israeli forces crossed the Jordan River and advanced toward Karameh. Herzog and Gazit describe an operation involving armored units, paratroopers, tanks, and helicopter-borne forces.

One part of the Israeli force was assigned to prevent interference or reinforcement by the Jordanian Army, while another force attacked the Fatah concentration at Karameh.

The Israeli forces encountered substantially greater resistance than anticipated. The Jordanian Army became directly involved in the fighting, including armored combat against Israeli forces. Herzog and Gazit describe the battle as bitterly fought and note that Israeli commanders made tactical errors.

According to Herzog and Gazit, Israeli forces gained control of the town during the morning and discovered that the Fatah presence was larger than previously believed. Israeli forces subsequently withdrew from the East Bank later that day.

Contemporary reporting similarly described the operation as a major engagement involving Israeli forces, Fatah fighters, and Jordanian military forces.

What Happened to Fatah After Karameh?

The March operation damaged the Fatah infrastructure at Karameh, but it did not end Palestinian armed activity in Jordan.

Herzog and Gazit report that the operation exposed the vulnerability of Palestinian concentrations along the Jordan River. Fatah and other Palestinian organizations consequently moved their concentrations into mountainous areas farther from the river.

The Salt area subsequently became particularly important. Contemporary reports described the mountainous region around Salt as a substitute base for Fatah infrastructure that had been damaged at Karameh.

The Subsequent Air Strikes Around Salt

The movement of Palestinian armed organizations toward Salt was followed by Israeli air attacks against reported Fatah bases and headquarters in the region.

A contemporary Associated Press report published in The Daytona Beach Morning Journal on August 4, 1968, reported that Israeli aircraft attacked bases and command posts around Salt. The Israeli Army described Salt as a substitute base for Fatah after Karameh.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency likewise reported in August 1968 that Israeli aircraft had struck a new Fatah base in Jordan and that Israeli officials regarded the headquarters around Salt as having replaced the damaged Karameh infrastructure.

According to the contemporary reporting, the targets included headquarters, training facilities, barracks, and other military infrastructure associated with Palestinian armed organizations.

These later attacks should not be conflated with the March 21 ground operation. They were part of the continuing military confrontation along the Jordanian-Israeli frontier.

A Distinction Between Orders, Intentions, and Outcomes

The evidence concerning Karameh is strongest when three separate questions are kept distinct.

1. What were Israeli forces ordered to do?

The surviving accounts reported by Oren indicate that commanders were explicitly instructed not to kill women, children, or elderly civilians and to distinguish armed Fatah personnel from civilians and those who had abandoned their weapons.

2. Were civilians warned before the operation?

Yes. Becker and Reeve describe leaflets being dropped before the attack, warning civilians to leave.

The three-day interval refers to the period between the March 18 school-bus bombing and the March 21 Karameh operation.

3. What happened during and after the operation?

The battle involved heavy fighting with both Palestinian armed groups and the Jordanian Army. Civilian presence in Karameh appears to have been substantially reduced before the battle according to Herzog and Gazit, while contemporary Israeli sources characterized the town as predominantly a Fatah military center.

Nevertheless, the broader historical record contains competing claims concerning civilian casualties and the conduct of the operation.

Conclusion

The available documentary and historical record provides evidence that the Israeli command attempted to distinguish between Palestinian armed personnel and civilians during Operation Karameh. The reported orders explicitly prohibited the killing of women and children and instructed soldiers to target armed Fatah personnel who were resisting with firearms.

There was also an advance warning to civilians. The operation occurred three days after the March 18 school-bus bombing, whereas Becker and Reeve describe leaflets giving approximately two hours' warning before the attack.

The evidence also indicates that Karameh had become a major Fatah base and that much of its civilian population had left before the battle. At the same time, Arafat fled after distributing arms, some local young men were reportedly forcibly recruited by Palestinian organizations, complicating any simple distinction between local residents and combatants.

After the March battle, Palestinian armed organizations shifted their bases toward the mountainous areas around Salt. Israeli forces subsequently used air power against reported Fatah headquarters, training facilities, and other military infrastructure in that region.

Taken together, these sources portray Operation Karameh as a complex military confrontation involving Israeli forces, Fatah and other Palestinian armed organizations, the Jordanian Army, and a residual civilian population.

The most firmly documented evidence concerning Israeli intent comes from the reported operational orders: civilians were to be protected, while armed Fatah personnel offering resistance were to be engaged.

_____

MUHAMMAD EL-FARRAH

Arab-Palestinian-born Muhammad Hussain Ek-Farrah.

From Author Nathan A. Kurz, 'From Antisemitism to “Zionism Is Racism.” In: Jewish Internationalism and Human Rights after the Holocaust. Human Rights in History,' in Oct 1960:

'Jordanian Ambassador Muhammad Hussain El-Farra began the General Assembly debate by saying that any consideration of global antisemitism had to be tempered by the 'practices adopted against the Arab minority in Palestine by the very people complaining of antisemitic demonstrations.'

On March 22, 1968, El-Farra, serving as Jordan’s ambassador to the U.N., accused Israel of so-called “genocide.”

By May, he had followed in Shukeiri’s 1961 propaganda by invoking the “apartheid” analogy.

Following the August 4 operation on Salt, Voice of Fatah followed el-Farrah with the “genocide” accusation as it was announcing that it will target civilians, as if it had not already been doing so up to that point.

References

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