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The months prior to the end of the British mandate in Palestine, in May 1948, were fraught with the certainty that blood would be spilled. In fact, the killing had already started, following the UN decision to split the territory into two parallel states, Jewish and Arab. Fear and the perceived need for self-preservation had fostered a spiral of violence in which civilians found themselves in the front line.

The ICRC was putting its energy into the complete revision of the Geneva Conventions, with the addition of a new treaty to protect civilians – precisely the tool it had lacked in World War II. The new laws were to be adopted in 1949. In the meantime, amid growing appeals to take action in the worsening Palestine situation, it had to do what it could.

As a first step the Committee sent a delegate, Jacques de Reynier, to Jerusalem in January 1948 to make contact with all sides and build up a relationship of trust in which the ICRC might hope to be able to work. Not the most simple of tasks, de Reynier noted later *, since “generally speaking, confidence no longer governs relations between the inhabitants here….”

Dialogue with Arabs and Jews

Nonetheless, this resourceful Swiss army officer, Arabic-speaking and with a marked sense of initiative, succeeded in establishing a dialogue with both Jews and Arabs on the spot, as well as with the governments of neighbouring Arab nations. The British were also cooperative – but they were about to leave anyway…

Most importantly, after some initial hesitation, both Jews and Arabs agreed to respect the provisions of the Geneva Conventions, even though neither side, at that moment, represented a state.

About a month before the end of the British mandate, two events took place that were to set the tone for the many difficulties – and the modest successes – that lay ahead. In early April the ICRC delegate was contacted and asked to try to rescue a group of wounded Jewish fighters who had become encircled and faced, at the least, an uncertain fate. De Reynier talked his way through the lines and persuaded the Arab forces, the British monitors – and the threatened Jews themselves – to allow safe passage for the wounded.

Flight to safety

Some days later de Reynier was again summoned – this time by the Arab side – following an attack on the village of Deir Yassin by Jewish extremists, resulting in many civilian deaths**. The delegate discovered only three survivors – two women and a young girl. The atrocity sent a shockwave through the Arab community and led to widespread displacement of the population – hundreds of thousands fled to safer areas.

It was against this backdrop, and faced with the hostility of its neighbours, that the State of Israel was proclaimed on 14 May 1948.

Measuring the likely political and military consequences of this “ethnic cleansing”, and buoyed by the apparent acceptance by all sides of the ICRC’s neutrality, de Reynier proposed the creation of three “security zones” in Jerusalem. These would be open to all, without discrimination, and would have to be respected by all combatants.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the nature of the conflict and of the terrain, all sides agreed. De Reynier was besieged with offers of buildings that could be used – for humanitarian reasons, no doubt, but, as he recalled, “especially in the hope that they [the buildings] would be untouched…”. The zones were duly proclaimed, under the protection of the red cross emblem.

The fact that one of the zones closed after only a few hours, and that another ceased functioning after part of it – the King David hotel – was seized by Jewish fighters during a truce – did not lessen de Reynier’s enthusiasm for the concept. “Some 2,000 people found refuge there,” he wrote a year later, at the end of his mission.

The limited success of these security zones provided a grim foretaste of the difficulties that would be encountered in trying to protect civilian war victims in the remainder of the 20th century.

* See de Reynier’s book “1948 à Jérusalem” (publ. Georg, Geneva)
** The exact number of victims is disputed – Ed.


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The article’s editorial content and style are those of Le Temps and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the ICRC, which has provided this summary as an informative guide to the article.