Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ayman Odeh was removed from the Knesset plenum on Wednesday, October 29, after interrupting Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf during a heated debate over a bill requiring Israel to take responsibility for and commemorate the victims of the 1956 massacre of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel in Kafr Qasim by Border Police officers.
Communist Party of Israel General Secretary, Adel Amer; Hadash MKs Ayman Odeh, Ofer Cassif and Aida Touma-Sliman and Hadash Secretary Amjad Shbita during the commemoration of the 69th anniversary of the Kafr Qasim massacre that claimed 49 lives in 1956, Wednesday, October 29, 2025 (Photo: Zo Haderekh)
The law, proposed by Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) would also have required the government to fund an organization dedicated to the memory of those killed, and to teach schoolchildren about the massacre for at least one hour per year. The bill fails 9-38 in its preliminary reading. Each year, Hadash parliamentarians regularly propose the bill near the event’s October 29 anniversary, but the Knesset has repeatedly them.
Earlier in the morning, thousands of Arab-Palestinian citizens gathered in the central town of Kafr Qasim to commemorate the 69th anniversary of the massacre that claimed 49 lives in 1956. The annual march, marked by grief and defiance, renewed demands for official recognition of one of the darkest episodes in Israel’s history.
Men, women, and schoolchildren carrying black flags, Palestinian flag colors and portraits of the victims walked through the streets of the town before halting at the memorial site. There, survivors, community leaders, and families of the dead observed a minute’s silence and laid wreaths in memory of those killed by Israeli border police during a sudden curfew nearly seven decades ago.
The commemoration was attended by representatives of Hadash and the Communist Party of Israel members, Arab society and rights groups, who reiterated demands for the Israeli government to issue a formal apology, release classified documents related to the massacre.
The Kafr Qasim massacre took place in 1956. Border Police opened fire on Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel who had “violated a wartime curfew on their village”, killing 48.” Those killed had been unaware of the curfew. News of the massacre leaked out almost immediately. However, it took two months of lobbying by communist Knesset Members Tawfik Toubi and Meir Vilner and members of the press (from Kol Ha’am, Al Ittihad and Haolam Haze newspapers) before the government lifted the media blackout imposed by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. To limit publicity, a military cordon was maintained around the village for months, preventing journalists from approaching.
