Palestinian return to Israel

Palestinian infiltration was a phenomenon of mass crossing by Palestinians of Israel's borders in the years 1949-1956. Most of the infiltrators were refugees, willing to return to their homes prior to the war, or to reclaim abandoned property. However, a minority were militants, who organized armed attacks on Israeli civilians, and left hundreds of them left.

The infiltrations were a breech of Israel's cease-fire agreements with Jordan and Egypt. In the case of Egypt, the militant infiltrators (fedayeen) simply formed a battallion of the Egyptian army, stationed in Gaza City, meaning the support for them was official. In the case of Jordan, the Arab Legion nominally agreed to stop the infiltrations, but was reluctant to carry this out.

Some Arabs declare the Infiltraton info Israel's territory to have been a direct consequence to the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian refugees during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Most of the infiltrators were refugees looking for their lost ones, harvesting the crops of their confiscated fields and Bedouins to whom the concept of international borders were new. During the 1949-1956 period 90% of the infiltrators were motivated by social or economic concerns. (Benny Morris, Israel's Border Wars 1993).

To Israel, the infiltration was a large problem. Although not a large part of the infiltrators, the armed guerillas have left hundreds of Israeli civilians dead, as well as inflicted a considerable loss of property. The infiltration, whuch was usually carried out at night by armed people, terrorized the Jewish civilians, some of whom lived in former Arab areas. Moreover, while most of the infiltrators didn't come with the intention to kill, many of them did steal property.

Israel's answer to this was to establish new settlements along the border and raze the abandoned Arab villages. A "free fire" policy towards infiltrators was adopted. From time to time war crimes and atrocities were committed, they included gang rape, murder and on one occasion the dumping of 120 caught infiltrators in the Arava desert without water, that led to the death of 30.

Eventually, the Israeli leadership came to the conclusion that only retaliatory rides would be able to create the necessary factor of deterrence, that would convince the Arab armies to prevent infiltration. This was the cause for the establishment of Unit 101 in August 1953. Initially, the Israeli thin

In October 1953, Qibya operation