October 29, 1956: the day on which Israel launched its assault on Egypt, units of Israeli Frontier guards started at 4:00 pm what they called a tour of the Triangle Villages. They told the Mukhtars (Aldermen) of those villages that the curfew from that day onwards was to start from 5:00 pm instead of the usual 6:00 pm, and that the inhabitants are ordered to stay home. The Mukhtars (Aldermen) protested that there were about 400 villagers working outside the village and there was not enough time to inform them of the new times. An officer assured him that they will be taken care of.
Meanwhile, the officers positioned themselves at the village entrance. At about 4:55 pm, unaware of the ambush awaiting them, the innocent farmers started flocking in after a hard day of work. The Israeli soldiers started stepping out of their military trucks and ordered the villagers to line up. Then the officer in charge ordered their murders and the soldiers riddled the bodies of the Palestinian villagers with bullets in cold blood. With the massacre practically over, the soldiers moved around finishing off whoever still had a pulse in him.
The government of Israel took great pains to hide the truth, but after the investigation was concluded, Ben Gurion, the Israeli Prime Minister, announced that some people in the Triangle had been injured by the Frontier guards. The press also was part of the conspiracy to cover up the incident. The Hebrew press wrote about a “mistake” and a “misfortune”, when it mentioned the victims, and it was difficult to tell whom it meant.
More absurd than the trial of accomplices, was their light sentences. The court found Major Meilinki and Lt. Daham guilty of killing 43 people and sentenced the former to 17 years and the latter to 15 years. What was remarkable about the Israeli official attitude was that various authorities competed to lighten the killer’s sentences. Finally, the committee for the release of prisoners ordered the remission of a third of the prison sentence of all those who were convicted. In September 1960, Daham was appointed in the municipality of the city of Ramle as officer for the Arab Affairs.