Unit 101
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Unit 101 was an Israeli special operations unit founded and led by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. It was created to retaliate against a spate of Arab fedayeen violence against Israelis. According to critics, the vast majority of its targets were Palestinian civilians. According to Sharon, Ben-Gurion told him that "the Palestinians must learn that they will pay a high price for Israeli lives". Its commander was major Sharon, his deputy in command was Shlomo Baum]. Unit 101 was disbanded in late 1955.
[edit] Background and organization
The background to the founding of Unit 101 was the successful attacks on the state of Israel from its Arab neighbors during which hundreds of Israelis were killed. Israel's retaliatory strikes were largely not successful. Although Jordanian and initially Egyptian authorities tried to comply with the cease-fire agreements, the decision was almost never carried out by troops on the ground. According to Benny Morris, Israel's resulting conduct on the Egyptian and Jordanian borders resulted in numerous violations of Arab territorial sovereignty, many of which obligated Great Britain to honor its defensive treaties by intervening, and the killings of 2,700-5000 Palestinians, most of which were civilians (Morris, Righteous Victims: 273).
As early as 1953, the Egyptian military intelligence was sending strike teams into Israel; by 1955 this has become an open policy leading to the establishment of a fedayeen battalion. In spite of defensive arrangements, Israel was not able to block the attacks using such measures alone, and the IDF did not perform well in offensive operations. Benny Morris, has asserted that by and large the majority of Arabs attempting to enter Israel were Palestinian refugees attempting to return to the homes they had fled during the 1948 war. Responding to criticism (mainly from foreign minister Moshe Sharrett) General Dayan, then head of Southern Command, had this to say about the IDF's shoot-on-sight border-control policy:
"Arabs cross to collect the grain that they left in the abandoned villages and we set mines for them and they go back without an arm or a leg. [It may be that] this cannot pass [moral] review, but I know no other method of guarding the borders. If the Arab shepherds and harvesters are allowed to cross the borders, then tomorrow the State of Israel will have no borders" (Morris: 275)
According to David Meir-Levi, "From 1949 to 1956, Egypt waged a terror war against Israel, launching c. 9,000 attacks from terrorist cells set up in the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip."
From 1950 the attacks became much more violent and included deaths of Israeli citizens in nearby cities. The Israeli government cites dozens of these attacks as "Major Arab Terrorist Attacks against Israelis prior to the 1967 Six-Day War". [1] [2] Between 1949 and 1956, 400 Israelis were killed and 900 wounded by fedayeen attacks. [3] [4]; according to the Anti-Defamation League "[i]n 1955 alone, 260 Israeli citizens were killed or wounded by fedayeen". [5]
After Israel's operation Black Arrow in 1955 which came as a result of a series of attacks in the city of Rehovot, the Palestinian fedayeen were incorporated into an Egyptian unit.{fact}
After a series of unsuccessful retaliatory infiltrations, the Israeli government decided in summer 1953 on the creation of a special forces unit, Israel's first. Reservist Ariel Sharon was called back to duty, given the rank of major and chosen to command the company-sized unit. One of the unit's tactical commanders was Meir Har-Zion, who was later awarded the rank of an officer solely for his conduct in battle.
Unit 101’s first documented assault took place in August 1953, when 50 refugees were killed at the El-Bureij refugee camp[1]. The following October, Unit 101 infiltrated the Jordanian village of Qibya, where 45 houses, a school and a mosque were blown up, resulting in the death of 69 civilians.
According to United Nations observers, “Bullet-riddled bodies near the doorways and multiple bullet hits on the doors of the demolished houses indicated that the inhabitants had been forced to remain inside until their homes were blown up over them.”
Sharon would later write in his biography, “While civilian deaths were a tragedy, the Qibya raid was also a turning point...It was now clear that Israeli forces were again capable of finding and hitting targets far behind enemy lines...With Qibya, a new sense of confidence began to take root.”{fact}
This operation has embarrassed Israel and the first intentions disbanding the unit, which was known for it's lack of military discipline (absence of uniforms and absence of respect to rank for example), appeared in that time. However successes such as the February 1955 retaliatory operation, under the command of Ariel Sharon delayed the disbanding. In this action 42 Egyptian soldiers were killed and 36 wounded versus just 8 Israeli dead. This led to a Soviet-Egyptian arms deal and opened the Middle East to the Soviet Union.
Attacks continued until Unit 101 was disbanded in late 1955.
[edit] Operations
On one of its first missions, the unit attacked the refugee camp in El-Bureij in Gaza Strip[1]. The mission was allegedly aimed at Col. Mustafa Hafez, the chief of Egyptian intelligence in the Gaza Strip (and according to some, the Strip's de-facto ruler) who stood behind many of the early violent infiltrations into Israel.
According to the local UN officer Vagn Bennike, hand grenades were thrown into houses while the inhabitants were sleeping, and those trying to escape were mowed down with machine guns[1].
Only two months later, in October, the unit was involved in a raid into the village of Qibya[2] in the northern West Bank then a part of Jordan. Up to 70 civilians were killed in this operation[2]. The mode of operation was similar to that of El-Bureij, but on a larger scale.
The widely condemned attack on Qibya made the Israeli leadership forbid the IDF to directly target civilians in the future. By January 1954, the unit was disbanded and merged into the Paratroopers Brigade, and unit commander Ariel Sharon became the commander of the merged brigade. The unit existed independently as a core inside the paratrooper brigade, before being disbanded after the 1956 Suez War.
From 1954, the unit's activities were mostly confined to military targets. In particular, up to 20 such attacks were carried out in 1955-1956, culminating in the Kalkiliya Police raid of October 1956 - a battle by a position of the Arab Legion in one of the old British police forts, during which 18 Israeli soldiers and up to a hundred Legionnaires died.
