Moshe Kelman

Who is Moshe Kelman?

Moshe Kelman was the operational commander of the Palmach's Third Battalion in 1948.

In the summer of 1947 Kelman was ordered by the Haganah High Command to supervise the execution and burial of a Jew accused of collaborating with the British. The execution took place at Kibbutz Dafna.

With the outbreak of the civil war Kelman was a senior member of the Palmach. Following the Al-Khisas raid, 18 December 1947, when a woman member of the Palmach refused to throw a grenade into a room in which she could hear a child crying, Kelman argued that women should not be used on front line duties but should be used as "cooks and service people."

On 15 February 1948, Kelman led a force of 60 men which attacked the remote village Sa'sa', in the Upper Galilee. The operation coincided with a number of other attacks on Arab targets. Its intention was to demonstrate that no village was beyond the reach of the Haganah and to restore Jewish public morale following the deaths of 35 members of the Haganah attempting to reach the outpost of Kfar Etzion a month previously. Kelman had orders to "blow up twenty houses and kill the largest possible number of fighters."