Early in the morning of Friday, April 9, 1948, commandos of the
Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang attacked Deir
Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. By noon
over 100 people, half of them women and children, had been
systematically murdered. Four commandos died at the hands of
resisting Palestinians using old Mausers and muskets. Twenty-five
male villagers were loaded into trucks, paraded through the Zakhron
Yosef quarter in Jerusalem, and then taken to a stone quarry along
the road between Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin and shot to death. A
final body count of 254 was reported by The New York Times on April
13, a day after they were finally buried.