Early on the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of Menachem Begin's Irgun and the Stern Gang, classified as Zionist terrorist groups internationally, attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents located outside of the area assigned by the United Nations for the establishment of the state of Israel. The town had a peaceful reputation but was situated on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, making it strategically desirable to the attacking forces. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet, the plan created over the previous ten years detailing the Zionist conquest of Palestine. The massacre of its inhabitants occurred under the direction of the predecessor of today's Israel Defense Force, the Haganah, which authorized the Irgun and the Stern Gang to massacre the village's inhabitants. Over 100 men, women, and children were slaughtered and murdered at Deir Yassin. Fifty-three children were orphaned, and the Zionist terrorists callously dumped them along the wall of Jerusalem's Old City, where Miss Hind Husseini found them. She brought the children to relative safety at the American Colony Hotel, and her home would become the Dar El-Tifl El-Arabi orphanage. This event is one of 35 massacres and hundreds of smaller attacks occurring in Palestine during the six months preceding the formation of the state of Israel. More would follow upon statehood. The Arab nations would not attack Israel and its forces until it became a state. They entered the fight on May 15, 1948. Israelis refer to this period as a War for Independence. The people living on the land, the Christians, Druze, and Muslims, refer to it as the Nakba, or The Great Catastrophe. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist forces between December 1947 and 1949 is one of the foundational issues causing the continuation of hostilities, the emergence of apartheid, and the unending occupation of the Holy Land. The massacre is remembered by its victims and largely denied or dismissed by its perpetrators. Throughout their ethnic cleansing, Zionist terrorists forced the removal of over 700,000 people from their homes in Palestine between November 30, 1947, and 1949. Under international law, prohibiting the residents' repatriation, which continues today by the state of Israel, is a war crime. Many of these Christian, Druze, and Muslim refugees still hold the keys to the homes they fled. Today the number of Palestinian refugees worldwide exceeds six million, with many made refugees twice after the Six-Day war in 1967 when the remainder of Jordan's West Bank, Syria's Golan Heights, and Egypt's Gaza fell under Israeli occupation. PLEASE NOTE: Zionism is a political idealogy that promotes Jewish supremacy over the whole of historic Palestine. Zionism is not Judaism, nor is it or has it ever been part of the Jewish faith. The majority of Zionists today are Evangelical Christians who promote Zionism to expedite their interpretation of the "Book of Revelation" and Armageddon. This form of Christianity is referred to as Christian Zionism or Dispensationalism. It is a belief held by approximately 400 million, or 20 percent of Christians worldwide. Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism are not part of historic Christianity; most Christians reject it. It originated with a re-interpretation of the Bible in 1832 in Scotland and received a promotion in biblical footnotes added beginning in 1908.