Back مذبحة الطنطورة Arabic Tantoura qətliamı Azerbaijani Tantura-Massaker German کشتار طنطوره Persian Massacre de Tantura French Massacro di Tantura Italian
| Tantura massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight | |
 Tantura (1920–1933) during the British Mandate | |
| Location | Tantura, Mandatory Palestine (now Israel) |
| Date | 23 May 1948 |
| Target | Palestinian Arab villagers |
| Victims | 40–200+ Palestinian Arab villagers |
| Perpetrators | Israeli Defense Force's Alexandroni Brigade |
| Defenders | Villagers |
The Tantura massacre took place on the night of 22–23 May 1948 during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Around 40–200 Palestinian Arab villagers from Tantura were massacred by Israel's Haganah, namely the Alexandroni Brigade. The massacre occurred following Tantura's surrender, a village of roughly 1,500 people in 1945 located near Haifa. The victims were buried in a mass grave, which today serves as a car park for the nearby Tel Dor beach.
Oral testimonies by surviving Palestinians were met by skepticism. A corroborative 1998 thesis by an Israeli Haifa University graduate Theodore Katz, who interviewed survivors, was also met with denial. In a 2022 Israeli documentary film called Tantura, several Israeli veterans interviewed said they had witnessed a massacre at Tantura after the village had surrendered. In 2023, Forensic Architecture published its commissioned investigation of the area and concluded that there were three potential gravesites in the area of the Tel Dor beach that were connected to a massacre.
After the massacre, women and children were transported to Furaydis. Male survivors were placed into prison camps, later leaving Israel through prisoner exchanges followed by their families.