On the morning of April 9, 1948, following a tight siege and mortar bombardment, around 130 paramilitaries from the Jewish gangs of Irgun and Stern forced their way into the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, less than a mile from the suburbs of Jerusalem, and began house-to-house assaults. Part of “Operation Nachshon,” declaredly a military endeavour to break through the blockaded road to Jerusalem, the joint Jewish forces attacked the village with permission from the Haganah, then the leading Jewish militia and with whom the villagers had signed a non-aggression agreement. Of nearly 70 mass…