Israeli Border Guards under orders to shoot…

Israeli Border Guards under orders to shoot to kill curfew-breakers on the day that Israel launches its attack against Egypt fire on villagers returning from their fields, killing forty-seven men, women and children at the village of Kafr Qasim, about ten miles east of Tel Aviv.

All the dead are Arabs and all are full Israeli citizens, headed home at dusk from work in fields and factories—and unaware that a military curfew prohibiting movement after sundown had been imposed an hour or so earlier. (Eight of the policemen are tried and convicted, despite their claims that they were merely following orders. However, their sentences will later be reduced, and none will serve more than a year in jail. The officer held responsible for the orders by the court is fined one piaster (ten cents) for a "technical error.")