1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine
Encyclopedia
The 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine lasted from 30 November 1947, the date of the United Nations vote in favour of the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the UN Partition Plan, to the termination of the British Mandate itself on 14 May 1948.
This period constitutes the first phase of the 1948 Palestine war
, during which the Jewish
and Arab communities of Palestine clashed, while the British, who had the obligation to maintain order, organised their withdrawal and intervened only on an occasional basis.
The next phase of the conflict was the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
which began on 15 May 1948, on the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel, when the conflict in Palestine
became an outright war between the new State of Israel and its Arab neighbours.
According to Benny Morris
, much of the fighting in the first months of the war took place in and on the edges of the main towns, and was initiated by the Arabs. It included Arab snipers firing at Jewish houses, pedestrians, and traffic, as well as planting bombs and mines along urban and rural paths and roads. Morris also says that by the end of March 1948, the Yishuv had suffered about a thousand dead. According to Ilan Pappe
, by January 1948, 400 Jewish settlers had been killed while attempting to maintain contact with isolated Zionist settlements established "in the heart of Palestinian [Arab] areas", while 1500 Arabs had been killed in the "random bombardments and shellings of their villages and neighbourhoods". According to Yoav Gelber, by the end of March, there was a total of 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.
From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarised, with the intervention of a number of Arab Liberation Army
regiments inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee
and Samaria
. Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War
. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. To counter this, the Yishuv
authorities tried to supply the city with convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, Al-Hussayni's tactic had paid off. Almost all of Haganah
's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed. The situation for those who dwelt in the Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev
and North of Galilee was even more critical.
While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, the Arab population was more affected by the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed. Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards.
This situation caused the USA to withdraw their support for the Partition plan, thus encouraging the Arab League
to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to partition. The British, on the other hand, decided on 7 February 1948, to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan
.
Although a certain level of doubt took hold amongst Yishuv supporters, their apparent defeats were due more to their wait-and-see policy than to weakness. Ben-Gurion reorganised Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and woman in the country had to receive military training. Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir
from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin's decision to support the Zionist
cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able to sign very important armament contracts in the East. Other Haganah agents recuperated stockpiles from the Second World War, which helped improve the army's equipment and logistics. Operation Balak allowed arms and other equipment to be transported for the first time by the end of March.
Ben-Gurion invested Yigael Yadin
with the responsibility to come up with a plan in preparation for the announced intervention of the Arab states. The result of his analysis was Plan Dalet
, which was put in place from the start of April onwards. The adoption of Plan Dalet marked the second stage of the war, in which Haganah passed from the defensive to the offensive.
The first operation, named Nachshon
, consisted of lifting the blockade on Jerusalem
. 1500 men from Haganah's Givati brigade and Palmach
's Harel brigade conducted sorties to free up the route to the city between 5 April and 20 April.
The operation was successful, and enough foodstuffs to last 2 months were trucked into to Jerusalem for distribution to the Jewish population. The success of the operation was assisted by the death of Al-Hassayni in combat. During this time, and independently of Haganah or the framework of Plan Dalet, irregular troops from Irgun
and Lehi
formations massacred a substantial number of Arabs at Deir Yassin
, an event which, though publicly deplored and criticised by the principal Jewish authorities, had a deep impact on the morale of the Arab population.
At the same time, the first large-scale operation of the Arab Liberation Army ended in a "débâcle", having been roundly defeated at Mishmar HaEmek
, coinciding with the loss of their Druze
allies through defection.
Within the framework of the establishment of Jewish territorial continuity foreseen by Plan Dalet, the forces of Haganah, Palmach and Irgun intended to conquer mixed zones. Palestinian Arab society was shaken. Tiberias, Haifa
, Safed
, Beisan, Jaffa
and Acre
fell, resulting in the flight of more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs.
The British had, at that time, essentially withdrawn their troops. The situation pushed the leaders of the neighbouring Arab states to intervene, but their preparation was not finalised, and they could not assemble sufficient forces to turn the tide of the war. The majority of Palestinian Arab hopes lay with the Arab Legion
of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I, but he had no intention of creating a Palestinian Arab-run state, since he hoped to annex as much of the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine as he could. He was playing a double-game, being just as much in contact with the Jewish authorities as with the Arab League.
In preparation for the offensive, Haganah successfully launched Operations Yiftah and Ben-'Ami to secure the Jewish settlements of Galilee
, and Operation Kilshon
, which created a united front around Jerusalem. The inconclusive meeting between Golda Meir
and Abdullah I, followed by the Kfar Etzion massacre
on 13 May by the Arab Legion led to predictions that the battle for Jerusalem would be merciless.
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion
declared the independence of the state of Israel
and the 1948 Palestine war
entered its second phase with the intervention of the Arab state armies and the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
.
nationalists and Palestinian Arab
nationalists, who opposed one another just as much as they both opposed the British 'occupation.'
The Palestinian Arab backlash culminated in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Directed by Palestinian Arab nationalists, the rebels opposed Zionism, the British presence in Palestine and Palestinian Arab politicians who called for pan-Arabic nationalism at the same time. Both the British and the Zionist organisations of the time opposed the revolt; nonetheless, the Palestinian Arab nationalists did obtain from the British a drastic reduction of Jewish immigration, legislated by the 1939 White Paper. However, the consequences of the unsuccessful uprising were heavy. Nearly 5,000 Arabs and 500 Jews died; the various paramilitary Zionist organisations were reinforced, and the majority of the members of the Palestinian Arab political elite exiled themselves, such as Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
, chief of the Arab High Committee, who took refuge in Nazi Germany
, where he would help to recruit Muslim
s for the Waffen-SS
.
After World War II and the horrors of The Holocaust
, the Zionist movement gained attention and sympathy. In Mandatory Palestine, Zionist groups fought against the British occupation. The Palestinian Arab nationalists reorganised themselves, but their organisation remained inferior to that of the Zionists. Nevertheless, the weakening of the colonial British Empire reinforced Arab countries and the Arab League
for the future war against newly founded Israel
.
Diplomacy failed to reconcile the different points of view concerning the future of Palestine. On 18 February 1947, the British announced their withdrawal from the region. Later that year, on 29 November, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for a partition plan
with the support of the big global powers, but not that of Britain nor the Arabic nations.
enacted a general strike
that lasted three days.
A 'wind of violence' rapidly took hold of the country, foreboding civil war between the two communities.
In all the mixed zones where both communities lived, particularly Jerusalem and Haifa
, increasingly violent attacks, reprisals and counter-reprisals followed each other. Isolated shootings evolved into all-out battle
s. Attacks against traffic, for instance, turned into ambushes as one bloody attack led to another.
The first casualties of the war were passengers on a Jewish bus driving on the Coastal Plain near Kfar Sirkin
at 8:20 on 30 November. An eight-man gang from Jaffa, led by Seif al-Din Abu Kishk, ambushed the bus killing five and wounding others. Half an hour later they ambushed a second bus, southbound from Hadera
, killing two more. Later that morning, Arab snipers began to fire from Jaffa's Manshiya neighbourhood into southern Tel Aviv, killing at least one person. Shots were also fired at Jewish buses in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Irgun
and Lehi
followed a strategy of placing bombs in crowded markets and bus-stops. As on 30 December, in Haifa, when members of the clandestine militant Zionist group, Irgun
, threw two bombs at a crowd of Arab workers who were queueing in front of a refinery, killing 6 of them and injuring 42. An angry crowd killed 39 Jewish people in revenge, until British soldiers reestablished calm. In reprisals, some soldiers from the strike force, Palmach
and the Carmeli brigade, attacked the village
of Balad ash-Sheikh and Hawassa. According to different historians, this attack led to between 21 and 70 deaths.
On 22 February 1948, supporters of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
organised, with the help of certain British deserters, three attacks against the Jewish community. Using car bomb
s aimed at the headquarters of the pro-Zionist Palestine Post, the Ben Yehuda St. market and the backyard of the Jewish Agency's offices, they killed 22, 53 and 13 Jewish people respectively, and injured hundreds. In retaliation, Lehi
put a landmine on the railroad track in Rehovot
on which a train from Cairo
to Haifa
was travelling, killing 28 British soldiers and injuring 35. This would be copied on 31 March, close to Caesarea Maritima, which would lead to the death of forty people, injuring 60, who were, for the most part, Arab civilians.
Between December 1947 and January 1948, it was estimated that around 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 injured. By the end of March, a report stated that 2,000 had been killed and 4,000 injured. These figures correspond to an average of over 100 deaths and 200 injuries per week, all of this in a country with 2,000,000 inhabitants.
Apart from on the coastline, Jewish yishuv
im, or settlements, were very dispersed. Communication between the coastal area—which was the most developed in terms of Jewish settlements—and the peripheral settlements was carried out by road links. These road links were an easy target for attacks, as the majority of them passed through or near entirely Arab localities. The isolation of the 100,000 Jewish people in Jerusalem and other Jewish settlements outside the coastal zone, such as kibbutz Kfar Etzion
, halfway on the strategic road between Jerusalem and Hebron
, the 27 settlements in the Southern region of Negev
and the settlements to the north of Galilee
, were a weak strategic point for Yishuv
.
The possibility of evacuating these difficult to defend zones was considered, but the policy of Haganah
was set by David Ben-Gurion. He stated that 'what the Jewish people have has to be conserved. No Jewish person should abandon his or her house, farm, kibbutz
or job without authorisation. Every outpost, every colony
, whether it is isolated or not, must be occupied as though it were Tel Aviv
itself. No Jewish settlement was evacuated until the invasion of May 1948. Only a dozen kibbutzim in Galilee as well as those of Gush Etzion sent women and children into the safer interior zones.
Ben Gurion gave instructions that the settlements of Negev be reinforced in number of men and goods, in particular the kibbutzim of Kfar Darom
and Yad Mordechai
(both close to Gaza
), Revivim
(south of Beersheba
) and Kfar Etzion
. Conscious of the danger that weighed upon Negev, the supreme command of Haganah
assigned a whole Palmach
battalion there.
Jerusalem
and the great difficulty of accessing the city became even more critical to its Jewish population, who made up one sixth of the total Jewish population in Palestine. The route from Tel Aviv
to Jerusalem was long and precipitous, which, after leaving the Jewish zone at Hulda
, went through the foothills of Latrun
. Then, the 28-kilometre route between Bab al-Wad and Jerusalem took no less than 3 hours, and the route passed the vicinity of the Arab villages of Saris
, Qaluniya
, Al-Qastal
and Deir Yassin
.
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
arrived in Jerusalem with the intent to surround and besiege its Jewish community. He moved to Surif
, a village to the southwest of Jerusalem, with his supporters—around a hundred fighters who were trained in Syria
before the war and who served as officers in his army, Jihad al-Muqadas
, or Army of the Holy War. He was joined by a hundred or so young villagers and Arab veterans of the British Army
. His militia soon had several thousand men, and it moved its training quarters to Bir Zeit
, a town near Ramallah
. Its zone of influence extended up to Lydda
and Ramleh, where Hasan Salama
—a veteran of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine—commanded 1,000 men and co-ordinated, with al-Husayni, a plan of disruption and harassment of road traffic.
On 10 December, the first organised attack occurred when ten members of a convoy between Bethlehem
and Kfar Etzion
were killed.
On 14 January, Abd al-Qadir himself commanded and took part in an attack against Kfar Etzion, in which 1,000 Palestinian Arab combatants were involved. The attack was a failure, and 200 of al-Husayni's men died. Nonetheless, the attack did not come without losses of Jewish lives: a detachment of 35 Palmach
men who sought to reinforce the establishment were ambushed and killed.
On 25 January, a large scale attack took place in the Arab village of al-Qastal
. Due to an appeal by al-Husayni, many people from several Arab-majority villages situated in the northeast of Jerusalem joined the attack, although others did not, for fear of reprisals. The campaign for control over the roads became increasingly militaristic in nature, and became a focal point of the Arab war effort. After 22 March, supply convoys to Jerusalem stopped, due to a convoy of around thirty vehicles having been destroyed in the gorges of Bab-el-Wad.
On 27 March, an important supply convoy from Kfar Etzion
was taken in an ambush in southern Jerusalem. They were forced to surrender all of their arms, ammunition and vehicles to al-Husayni's forces. The Jews of Jerusalem requested the assistance of the United Kingdom after 24 hours of combat. According to a British report, the situation in Jerusalem, where a food rationing system was already in application, risked becoming desperate after 15 May.
The situation in other areas of the country was as critical as the one of Jerusalem. The settlements of Negev were utterly isolated, due to the impossibility of using the Southern coastal road, which passed through zones densely populated by Arabs. On 27 March, a convoy of supplies (the Yehiam convoy) that was intended for the isolated kibbutz
im north-west of Galilee was attacked in the vicinity of Nahariya
. In the ensuing battle, 42–47 Haganah
combatants and around a hundred fighters of the Arab Liberation Army
were killed, and all vehicles involved were destroyed.
All in all, West Jerusalem was gradually 'choked;' the settlements of Galilee could not be reached in any other way but via the valley of Jordan
and the road of Nahariya
, bots for the foreseen attack of the Arab states in May, and the earlier projected departure date of the British pushed Haganah to the offensive and to apply Plan Dalet
from April onwards.
Violence kept intensifying with the intervention of military units. Although responsible for law and order up until the end of the mandate, the British did not try to take control of the situation, being more involved in the liquidation of the administration and the evacuation of their troops. Furthermore, the authorities felt that they had lost enough men already in the conflict.
The British either could not or did not want to impede the intervention of foreign forces into Palestine. According to a special report by the UN Special Commission on Palestine:
This description corresponds to the entry of Arab Liberation Army
troops between 10 January and the start of March:
Fawzi al-Qawuqji
, Field Commander of the Arab Liberation Army, arrived, according to himself, on 4 March, with the rest of the logistics and around 100 Bosniak
volunteers in Jab'a, a small village on the route between Nablus
and Jenin
. He established a headquarters there and a training centre for Palestinian Arab volunteers.
Alan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner
in Palestine, thoroughly protested against the incursions and the fact that 'no serious effort is being made to stop incursions'. The only reaction came from Alec Kirkbride, who complained to Ernest Bevin
about Cunningham's 'hostile tone and threats'.
The British and the information service of Yishuv expected an offensive for 15 February, but it would not take place, seemingly because the Mufti troops were not ready.
In March, an Iraq
i regiment of the Arab Liberation Army came to reinforce the Palestinian Arab troops of Salameh
in the area around Lydda
and Ramleh, whilst Al-Hussayni started a headquarters in Bir Zeit, 10 km to the north of Ramallah. At the same time, a number of North Africa
n troops, principally Libyan
s, and hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood
entered Palestine. In March, an initial regiment arrived in Gaza
and certain militants amongst them reached Jaffa
.
was confident and decided to prevent the set-up of the UN-backed partition plan. In an announcement made to the Secretary-General on 6 February, they declared:
At the beginning of February 1948, the morale of the Jewish leaders was not high: 'distress and despair arose clearly from the notes taken at the meetings of the Mapai party.' 'The attacks against the Jewish settlements and main roads worsened the direction of the Jewish people, who underestimated the intensity of the Arab reaction. The situation of the 100,000 Jewish people situated in Jerusalem was precarious, and supplies to the city, already slim in number, were likely to be stopped. Nonetheless, despite the setbacks suffered, the Jewish forces, in particular Haganah
, remained superior in number and quality to those of the Arab forces.
These people were part of the first wave of Palestinian refugees of the conflict. Mostly the middle and upper classes fled, including the majority of the families of local governors and representatives of the Arab Higher Committee
. Non-Palestinian Arabs also fled in large numbers. Most of them did not abandon the hope of returning to Palestine once the hostilities had ended.
Britain did not want a Palestinian state led by the Mufti
, and opted unofficially instead, on 7 February 1948, to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Abdullah I of Jordan
. At a meeting in London between the commander of Transjordan
's Arab Legion
, Glubb Pasha, and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
, Ernest Bevin
, the two parties agreed that they would facilitate the entry of the Arab Legion into Palestine on 15 May and that the Arab part of Palestine be occupied by it. However, they held that the Arab Legion not enter the vicinity of Jerusalem or the Jewish state itself. This option did not envisage a Palestinian Arab state. Although the ambitions of King Abdullah are known, it is not apparent to what extent the authorities of Yishuv, the Arab Higher Committee
or the Arab League
knew of this decision.
abstained from voting. This U-turn from the Americans caused concern and debate amongst Yishuv authorities, who could not, after the withdrawal of British troops, afford to face the Arab troops without the support of the USA. In this context, Elie Sasson, the director of the Arab section of Jewish Agency, and several other personalities, ended up convincing David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meyerson
to advance a diplomatic initiative towards the Arabs. The job of negotiation was delegated to Joshua Palmon, who was prohibited from limiting the Haganah's liberty of action but was authorised to declare that 'the Jewish people were ready with a truce.'
n goods played a role in the war that was differently appreciated.
Motivations advanced as regards to Stalin's choice include his support towards the UN Partition plan and his interest in financially aiding Czechoslovakia to lessen their financial frustration after he refused to allow them to receive Marshall Plan
assistance.
The extent of this support and the concrete role that it played is up for debate. Figures advanced by historians tend to vary. Yoav Gelber spoke of 'small deliveries from Czechoslovakia arriving by air [...] from April 1948 onwards' whereas various historians have argued that there was an unbalanced level of support in favour of Yishuv
, given that the Palestinian Arabs did not benefit from an equivalent level of Soviet support. In any case, the embargo that was extended to all Arab states in May 1948 by the UN Security Council caused great problems to them.
At the Arab League
summit of October 1947, in Aley
, the Iraqi general, Ismail Safwat, painted a realist picture of the situation. He underlined the better organisation and greater financial support of the Jewish people in comparison to the Palestinians. He recommended the immediate deployment of the Arab armies at the Palestinian borders, the dispatching of weapons and ammunition to the Palestinians, and the contribution of a million pounds
of financial aid to them. His proposals were rejected, other than the suggestion to send financial support, which was not followed up on. Nonetheless, a techno-military committee was established to coordinate assistance to the Palestinians. Based in Cairo
, it was directed by Sawfat, who was supported by Lebanese and Syrian officers and representatives of the Higher Arab Committee. A Transjordian delegate was also appointed, but he did not participate in meetings.
At the December 1947 Cairo summit, under pressure by public opinion, the Arab leaders decided to create a military command that united all the heads of all the major Arab states, headed by Safwat. They still ignored his calls for financial and military aid, preferring to defer any decision until the end of the Mandate, but, nevertheless, decide to form the Arab Liberation Army
, which would go into action in the following weeks. On the night of 20–21 January 1948, around 700 armed Syrians entered Palestine via Transjordan. In February 1948, Safwat reiterated his demands, but they fell on deaf ears: the Arab governments hoped that the Palestinians, aided by the Arab Liberation Army, could manage on their own until the International community renounced the partition plan.
Whereas the Arab states had state armies and official structures that guaranteed a steady flow of weapons, ammunition and materials, the other belligerents of the conflict did not. The Palestinian Arabs and the Jews' situation was more delicate, since, during the British mandate, the authorities always prohibited the possession of weapons, and confiscated all that they found. Consequently, neither had heavy weaponry or the advantages that recognised, established states have, and their forces had to be clandestine.
The Arab Liberation Army
was, in theory, financed and equipped by the Arab League
. A budget of one million pounds sterling had been promised to them, due to the insistence of Ismail Safwat. In reality, though, funding never arrived, and only Syria
truly supported the Arab volunteers in concrete terms. On the ground, logistics were completely neglected, and their leader, Fawzi al-Qawuqji, envisaged that his troops survive only on the expenses accorded to them by the Palestinian population.
The situation that the Army of the Holy War
and the Palestinian forces were in was worse. They could not rely on any form of foreign support and had to get by on the funds that Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
could raise. The troops' armament was limited to what the fighters already had. To make things even worse, they had to be content with arms bought on the black market or pillaged from British warehouses, and, as a result, did not really have enough arms to wage war.
The situation in which Jewish fighters found themselves in was better than that of the Palestinian Arabs, since they benefitted from a number of clandestine factories that manufactured light weapons, ammunition and explosives. The one weapon of which there was no shortage was locally produced explosives. However, they had far less than what was necessary to carry out a war: in November, only one out of every three Jewish combatants was armed, rising to two out of three within Palmach.
However, for Ben-Gurion, the problem was not essentially having the capacity of waging war, but of constructing an army that was worthy to be a state army. The importance that he accorded to this is illustrated by the practice of combining the cabinet posts of Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, a practice that he initiated and that many of his successors follow.
To arm and equip this army, he sent agents to Europe and to the USA, thence came the essential support in terms of light arms and munitions, which began to arrive at the start of April. From June, onwards, there was also a flow of heavy arms.
Until March, Haganah suffered a lack of arms similar to that of the Army of Holy War. From April onwards, it was armed better than the Palestinians, but, after 15 May, during the first weeks of the Arab-Israeli War, the arms advantage leant in favour of the Arab states. From June, after the first truce, the advantage leant clearly towards the Israelis. This situation's changing was due to the contacts made in November 1947 and afterwards.
The Jewish armament movement was helped out after the Yishuv agents obtained a supply of Avia
planes from Czechoslovakia
and, later on in the conflict, Supermarine Spitfire
s, machine gun
s and munitions. In the stockpiles left over from World War II, they procured all the necessary equipment, vehicles and logistics needed for an army. In France, they procured armoured vehicles despite the ongoing embargo. Jewish agents also bought machines to manufacture arms and munitions, forming the foundations of the Israeli armament industry.
In the USA, they bought a number of bombardiers and aircraft, which allowed for the transporting of arms purchased in Europe. Operation Balak was put in place to bring these arms and munitions to Israel by the end of March. Some ships were also leased out from various European ports so that these goods could be transported by 15 May. To finance all of this, Golda Meir
managed, by the end of December, to collect $25 million through a fundraising campaign set about in the USA to capitalise on American sympathisers to the Zionist cause. Out of the 129 million US dollars raised between October 1947 and March 1949 for the Zionist cause, more than $78 million, over 60%, were used to buy arms and munition.
After 'having gotten the Jews of Palestine and of elsewhere to do everything that they could, personally and financially, to help Yishuv
,' Ben-Gurion's second greatest achievement was his having successfully transformed Haganah from being a clandestine paramilitary
organisation into a true army. Ben-Gurion appointed Israel Galili to the position of head of the High Command counsel of Haganah and divided Haganah into 6 infantry
brigades, numbered 1 to 6, allotting a precise theatre of operation to each one. Yaakov Dori was named Chief of Staff, but it was Yigael Yadin who assumed the responsibility on the ground as chief of Operations. Palmach, commanded by Yigal Allon
, was divided into 3 elite brigades, numbered 10–12, and constituted the mobile force of Haganah.
On 19 November 1947, obligatory conscription
was instituted for all men and women aged between 17 and 25. By end of March 21,000 people had been conscripted. On 30 March the call-up was extended to men and single women aged between 26 to 35. Five days later a General Mobilization order was issued for all men under 40.
"From November 1947, the Haganah, (...) began to change from a territorial militia into a regular army. (...) Few of the units had been well trained by December. (...) By March–April, it fielded still under-equipped battalion and brigades. By April–May, the Haganah was conducting brigade size offensive.
Plan Dalet
was finalised on 10 March 1948, under the direction of Yigael Yadin
. 75 pages long, it laid down the rules and the objects that were to be followed by Haganah during the second phase of the war. Its principal objective was to secure Yishuv's uninterrupted territorial connections, particularly in response to the war of the roads carried out by Al-Hussayni and in preparation for the Arab states' declared intervention. Plan Dalet caused quite a controversy amongst historians. Some see it as a plan which was primarily defensive and military in nature and a preparation against invasion. whereas others think that the plan was offensive in nature and aimed at conquering of as much of Palestine as possible.
In this stage, Arab forces were composed of around 10,000 men among which between 3,000 and 5,000 foreign volunteers serving in the Arab Liberation Army
. Haganah
and Palmach
forces were steadily increasing. In March, they aligned around 15,000 men and in May around 30,000 who were better equipped, trained and organised.
The armed Palestinian groups were roundly defeated, Yishuv took control of some of the principal routes that linked the Jewish settlements, and as a consequence, Jerusalem was able to receive supplies again. Palestinian society collapsed. Many mixed cities were taken by the Haganah as well as Jaffa
. A massive exodus was triggered.
At the end of March 1948, Hussayni's troops prevented supply convoys from reaching Jerusalem. The city was besieged and the Jewish population was forced to adhere to a rationing system. As the first operation of Plan Daleth, Ben-Gurion decided to launch the operation Nachshon to open up the city and provide supplies to Jerusalem.
The first orders were given on 2 April 1948 with diversion attacks including Qastel. Between 5–20 April 1500 men from the Givati and Harel brigades took control of the road to Jerusalem and allowed 3 or 4 convoys to reach the city.
The operation was a military success. All the Arab villages that blocked the route were either taken or destroyed, and the Jewish forces were victorious in all their engagements. Nonetheless, not all the objectives of the operation were achieved, since only 1800 tonnes of the 3,000 envisaged were transported to the city, and two months of severe rationing had to be assumed.
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
was killed during the night of 7–8 April, in the midst of the battles taking place in Al-Qastal
. The loss of this charismatic Palestinian leader 'disrupted the Arab strategy and organisation in the area of Jerusalem.' His successor, Emil Ghuri, changed tactics: instead of provoking a series of ambushes throughout the route, he had a huge road block erected at Bab-el-Oued, and Jerusalem was once again isolated as a consequence.
Operation Nachshon exposed the poor military organisation of the Palestinian paramilitary groups. Due to lack of logistics, particularly food and ammunition, they were incapable of maintaining engagements that were more than a few hours away from their permanent bases.
Faced with these events, the Arab Higher Committee
asked Alan Cunningham to allow the return of the Mufti, the only person capable of redressing the situation. Despite obtaining permission, the Mufti did not get to Jerusalem. His declining prestige cleared the way for the expansion of the influence of the Arab Liberation Army and of Fawzi al-Kawukji in the Jerusalem area.
Mishmar HaEmek is a kibbutz
that was founded by Mapam
in 1930, in the Jezreel Valley
, close to the road between Haifa
and Jenin
that passes the Megiddo kibbutz
. It is situated in a place that Haganah
officers considered to be on one of the most likely axes of penetration for a 'major Arab attack' against the Yishuv.
On 4 April, the Arab Liberation Army launched an attack on the kibbutz with the support of artillery. The attack was fought off by the members of the kibbutz, who were supported by Haganah soldiers. The artillery fire that had almost totally destroyed the kibbutz was stopped by a British column, who arrived on the scene by order of General MacMillan, and, on 7 April, Fawzi Al-Qawuqji
accepted a 24-hour ceasefire
, but required that the kibbutz be surrendered. The inhabitants of the kibbutz evacuated their children, and, after having consulted Tel-Aviv, refused to surrender.
On 8 or 9 April, Haganah prepared a counter-offensive, with accordance to Plan Dalet
. Yitzhak Sadeh
was put in charge of operations, with the order to 'clean out' the region. The battle lasted until 15 April. Sadeh's men besieged all the villages around the kibbutz, and the Arab Liberation Army
had to retreat to its bases in Jabba. The majority of the inhabitants of the region fled, but those who did not were either imprisoned or expelled to Jenin. The villages were plundered by some kibbutz
nikim and razed to the ground with explosives.
According to Morris
, the Arab Liberation Army soldiers were demoralised by reports of the Deir Yassin massacre
and the death of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
. Throughout battle, they had generally been forced to withdraw and to abandon the people of the villages. Dominique Lapierre
and Larry Collins
report that Joshua Palmon, head of a unit of 6 men, failed to seize invaluable pieces of artillery, and they depict the events as a débâcle for which Fawzi Al-Qawuqji
offered extravagant excuses, declaring in particular that the Jewish forces has 120 tanks, six squadrons of fighter and bomber aircraft and that they were supported by a regiment of gentile
Russian volunteers.
When the battle finished, Palmach
forces continued 'cleaning' operations until 19 April, destroying several villages and forcing those who inhabited them to flee. Some villages were also evacuated under the instruction of Arab authorities.
In May, Irgun
engaged in several operations in the region, razing a number of villages and killing some of their inhabitants, as did some detachments from the Golani and Alexandroni brigades.
is a village located 5 kilometres west of Jerusalem. On 9 April 1948, independently of operation Nachshon, around 120 Irgun
and Lehi
men attacked the village. They massacred between 100 and 120 inhabitants of the village, mostly civilians. The Haganah had approved the attack and assisted in it, but was not involved in the massacre.
The massacre led to indignation from the international community, the more so since the press of the time reported that the death toll was 254. Ben-Gurion roundly condemned it, as did the principal Jewish authorities: the Haganah
, the Great Rabbinate and the Jewish Agency for Israel
, who sent a letter of condemnation, apology and condolence to King Abdullah I of Jordan
.
According to Morris
, "the most important immediate effect of the atrocity and the media campaign that followed it was how one started to report the fear felt in Palestinian towns and villages, and, later, the panicked fleeing from them." Another important repercussion was within the Arab population of neighbouring Arab states, which, once again, increased its pressure on the representatives of these states to intervene and come to the aid of the Palestinian Arabs.
on Mount Scopus was attacked by Arabs, killing 80 Jewish doctors and patients. Thirteen British soldiers were present, but they stood by, only putting in a perfunctory attempt at intervention in the last moments of the massacre.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Churchill was present at the scene, and later testified that he had attempted to assist the Hadassah convoy by radioing for support, only for the request to be turned down.
regiment of the Arab Liberation Army
into action, to carry out diversion operations. Druze soldiers took position in several Arab villages 12 kilometres to the east of Haifa, whence they occasionally attacked traffic and Jewish settlements, including Ramat Yohanan
.
The Kibbutznikim and the Haganah soldiers that supported them forced back their attacks with ease, and razed the villages from which they launched their attacks in retaliation. Having run out of ammunition, the Druze withdrew to their base in Shefa-'Amr
, with one hundred casualties.
The Druze had already made contact on several occasions with Yishuv agents, and, following their defeat at Ramat Yohanan, the Druze officers, without the knowledge of their officer, offered to defect and to join the ranks of Haganah. This proposition was discussed with Yigael Yadin
, who refused the proposal but suggested that they could help to carry out sabotage operations behind the backs of the Arabs and to influence their comrades into deserting the army. By the start of May, 212 Wahab soldiers deserted, Taking into account the attitude of his men, Wahab met with Jewish liaison officers on 9 May and agreed to cooperate with Haganah. The two parties avoided clashes, and Wahab created a neutral enclave in the centre of Galilee
. Wahab's army did not respond to calls for it to help fight Haganah's occupation of Acre
, and avoided being present whilst Haganah occupied the police fortress of Shefa-'Amr during its evacuation by the British.
The position that the Druze took influenced their fate after the war. Given the good relationship between the Druze and Yishuv from 1930 onwards despite their collaboration with the Arab Higher Council and the Arab League
, Ben-Gurion insisted that the Druze, as well as the Circassians and the Maronites
benefit from a different position to that of the other Arabs.
fell on 23 April, after only one day of combat (Operation Bi'ur Hametz), and Jaffa
was attacked on 27 April but fell only after the British abandoned it (Operation Hametz
). Safed
and Beisan fell on 11 May and 13 May respectively, within the framework of Operation Yitfah, and Acre
fell on 17 May, within the framework of Operation Ben Ami.
The Arab inhabitants of these towns fled or were expelled en masse. In these 6 cities, only 13,000 of the total of 177,000 Arab inhabitants remained by the end of May. This phenomenon ricocheted also in the suburbs and the majority of the zone's Arab villages.
The Finger of Galilee, a zone in northeastern Galilee
, between the Lake Tiberias
and Metula
, was the Jewish-controlled area that was the most distant and isolated from the area most densely populated by Jewish people, the coastal plain. The presence of the Lebanese border to the north, the Syrian border to east and the Arab presence in the rest of Galilee made it a probable target for intervention of the Arab armies. Within the framework of the Dalet plan, Yigael Yadin
entrusted Yigal Allon
, commander of the Palmach
, with the responsibility of managing Operation Yiftah, whose objectives were to control all the aforementioned area and consolidate it ahead of the Arab attack that was planned for 15 May.
Allon was in charge the 1st and 3rd Palmach battalion
s, which had to face the populace of Safed
and several dozen Arab villages. The situation was made more problematic by the presence of the British, although they began their evacuation of the area. According to his analysis, it was essential that they empty the zone of any Arab presence to completely protect themselves; the exodus would also encumber the roads that the Arab forces would have to penetrate.
On 20 April, Allon launched a campaign that mixed propaganda, attacks, seizing control of strongholds that the British had abandoned, and destroying conquered Arab villages. On 1 May, a counter-offensive was launched by Arab militiamen against Jewish settlements but was ultimately unsuccessful. On 11 May, Safed
fell, and the operation finished on 24 May after the villages of the valley of Hula were burnt down. Syrian forces' planned offensive in the area failed and, by the end of June, the zone covering everywhere from Tiberias to Metula, incorporating Safed, was emptied of all its Arab population.
and Ezra Danin secretly went to Amman
, to the palace of King Abdullah to discuss the situation with him. The situation that Abdullah found himself in was difficult. On one hand, his personal ambitions, the promises made by the Yishuv
in November 1947 and the British approval of these promises pushed him to consider annexing the Arab part of Palestine
without intervening against the future state of Israel. On the other hand, the pressure exerted by his people in reaction to the massacre of Deir Yassin, combined with their feelings with regard to the Palestinian exodus and his agreements with other members of the Arab League
pushed him to be more strongly involved in the war against Israel. He also found himself in a position of power, having the benefit of military support from not only the Arab League, but the British. In his diary, Ben-Gurion wrote about Golda Meir's reaction to the meeting:
Historical analyses of the motivations and conclusions of this meeting differ. According to Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins – as well as Israeli historiographers
– the intention behind the Yishuv's negotiation was to obtain a peace treaty and avoid an attack by Arab forces. At that time, the balance of power was not favourable for them, but Meir did not manage to convince the King.
According to Morris, Abdullah 'reconsidered the promises that he made in November to not be opposed to the partition plan,' but left Meir with the impression that he would make peace with the Jewish state once the civil war had finished.
Avi Shlaim spoke of a 'tacit' agreement to prevent the division of Palestine with the Palestinians, arguing the idea that there was a collusion between the Hashemite Kingdom and Yishuv. The historian Yoav Gelber
, however, rejected this idea and devoted an entire work to dismounting it.
Pierre Razoux indicated that 'the majority of experts consider it probable' that Ben-Gurion and King Abdullah had an understanding over dividing Palestine, and that only the pressure from the Arab states on Abdullah constrained him from following up on his promise. According to Razoux, this idea explains the attitude of the British, who, following this plan, would thereby fulfill the promises made by Arthur Balfour
to the Yishuv and the Hashemite empire at the same time. He states that the presence of Arab Legion troops, before 15 May, near strategic positions held by the British is in this way easy to understand...
Ilan Pappé stressed that neither Abdullah's ministers, nor the Arab world itself, seemed to be privy to the discussions held between him and the Yishuv, even if his ambitions on Palestine were widely known. He also stated that Sir Alec Kirkbride
and Glubb Pasha
thought at the time that, at the very least, Azzam Pasha
, the Secretary of the Arab League, must have known about Abdullah's double game.
It is certain, on the other hand, that Golda Meir and King Abdullah did not come to an agreement on the status of Jerusalem. On 13 May, the Arab Legion took Kfar Etzion
, strategically located halfway along the road between Hebron and Jerusalem. On 17 May, Abdullah ordered Glubb Pasha
, commander of the Arab Legion, to launch an attack against the Holy City.
Kfar Etzion is a group of four settlements established on the strategic route between Hebron and Jerusalem, right in the middle of Arab inhabited territory. It had 400 inhabitants at the end of 1947. After the adoption of the partition plan, it was the object of Arab attacks. Ben Gurion reinforced it on 7 December, protecting it with a Palmach division, but on 8 January, he authorised the evacuation of the women and children of the settlements.
After 26 March, the last date on which a supply convoy successfully reached it, despite heavy losses of life, the defenders were completely isolated.
On 12 May, Arab Legion
units started to attack the settlements. The motivations advanced include their desire to protect one of their last supply convoys before the embargo took effect, which had to travel down the road by Kfar Etzion. Another theory is that the block of settlements obstructed the deployment of the Legion in the area around Hebron, whose attack was one of Abdullah's principal objectives. External defences fell quickly, and, on 13 May, the first kibbutz was captured, and those who were taken prisoner were massacred; only four survived. Of the 131 defenders, 127, including 21 women, were killed, or massacred after they surrendered. The other three establishments surrendered, and the kibbutzim were first plundered, then razed to the ground.
The events that took place at Kfar Etzion made apparent the limitations of the policy prohibiting evacuation. Although it was effective during civil war, when facing militias, isolated Jewish settlements could not resist the fire power of a regular army, and an evacuation could have made it possible to avoid the captivity or death of those who defended the settlements.
According to Yoav Gelber, the fall and massacre of Kfar Etzion influenced Ben-Gurion's decision to engage the Arab Legion on its way to Jerusalem, although the Haganah General Staff were divided about whether the Legion should be challenged inside Jerusalem itself as such a move could harm the Jews in the city. Ben Gurion left the final decision to Shaltiel. The battle for Jerusalem was thus set in motion.
The Haganah
intended to capture the Old City during the final days of the Mandate. Its attacks on the seam between East and West Jerusalem from 13–18 May (known as Operation Kilshon) were planned as the initial phase of this conquest.
In Jerusalem, the British held several strategically located security zones named "Bevingrads", at its centre. The city's radio station, telephone exchange and government hospital were located there, along with a number of barracks and the Notre Dame hostel, which dominated the city. One of the main objectives of Operation Kilshon was to take control of these zones of strategic importance whilst the British withdrew. On 13 May the Haganah extended its control of the Old City's Jewish Quarter and on 14th (having obtained the precise schedule of the evacuation with British complicity) took control of the Bevingrads, including the central post office and the Russian Church compound at 04:00. They surprised the Arab troops, who offered no resistance.
A secondary objective of Operation Kilshon was to simultaneously create a continuous frontline between the various isolated Jewish localities. For this aim, Brigadier General David Shaltiel, Haganah's former envoy to Europe, was deployed along with a troop of 400 Haganah soldiers and 600 militia soldiers. Emil Ghuri, the new leader of the Army of the Holy War, also envisaged taking these districts and mobilised 600 soldiers for the mission, but prepared no specific operation.
The secondary aim was also successful. In the North of the city, Jewish forces seized Arab-populated Sheikh Jarrah, made a connection with Mount Scopus
, and took the villages surrounding the American settlement. In the South, they ensured the connection of the German and Greek settlements with Talpiot and Ramat Rahel, after having taken the Allenby barracks. A Palmach unit even re-established contact with the Jewish district in the Old City via the Zion Gate.
The irregular Arabic forces were rendered impotent and yielded to panic, calling the situation hopeless and announcing the imminent fall of the city.
Within the framework of Plan Dalet
, Yigael Yadin
intended to make a breakthrough in the west of Galilee
, wherein a number of isolated Jewish settlements were situated. This zone, which covers the land from Acre
all the way to the Lebanese
border
, was allocated to the Arabs by the Partition plan, but was on the road through which Lebanese forces intended to enter into Palestine.
The command of this operation was entrusted to Moshe Carmel, head of the Carmeli brigade. It consisted of two phases: the first began on the evening of 13 May, when a column of Haganah's armoured vehicles and lorries advanced along the coast with no resistance. The forces of the Arab Liberation Army fled without entering battle, and the first phase of the operation finished when Acre was taken on 18 May. In the second phase, from 19 May to 21 May, troops went as far as the Yehi'am kibbutz by the Lebanese border, connecting it and conquering and destroying a number of Arab villages on the way.
Haganah's move to offensive operations during the second phase of the war was accompanied by a huge exodus that involved 300,000 Arab refugees, not to forget the 100,000 of the First wave. The term 'Palestinian exodus' is often used to refer to both these and two subsequent waves. These two waves gained a considerable amount of press interest and were widely relayed in the press of the time, more so than most other Palestine-related events.
The causes of and responsibility for this exodus are highly controversial topics amongst commentators on the conflict and even historians who specialise in this era. Amongst the various possible causes, some attribute the exodus mainly to Arab authorities' instructions to escape, whereas others feel that a policy of expulsion had been organised by the Yishuv
authorities and implemented by Haganah. Others yet reject these two assumptions and see the exodus as the cumulative effect of all the civil war's consequences.
to help the Palestinians and to force the international community to give up on the UN-backed partition plan. The following summit took place in Cairo on 10 April, with the situation having clearly developed with the death of Al-Hussayni and the debacle at Mishmar Ha'emek.
Once again, Ismail Safwat called for the immediate deployment of the Arab state armies at the borders of Palestine, and for the need to go beyond the established policy of participating in little more than small-scale raids towards taking part in large-scale operations. For the first time, the Arab leaders discussed the possibility of intervening in Palestine.
Syria
and Lebanon
declared themselves ready to intervene immediately, but King Abdullah refused to let the Arab Legion
forces intervene immediately in favour of the Palestinians, a move which irritated the Secretary-General
of the League, who declared that Abdallah only cedes to the British diktat.
Nonetheless, Abdullah declared himself ready to send the Legion to assist the Palestinian cause after 15 May. In response, Syria insisted that the Egyptian army also take part, and, in spite of the opposition of Egypt's prime minister, King Farkouk responded favourably to the Syrian request, but due to his aim of curbing the Jordanians'
hegemonic goals rather than his desire to help the Palestinians.
Later on, following the visit of several Palestinian dignitaries in Amman
, and despite the opposition of Syria and the Mufti, Hadj Amin Al-Hussayni, Azzam Pasha accepted Abdullah's proposition and sent Ismail Safwat to Amman
to organise a coordination between the Arab Liberation Army
and Jordan's Arab Legion. It was decided that command over the operations would be reserved for King Abdullah, and that the Iraqis would deploy a brigade in Transjordan to prepare for intervention on 15 May.
On 26 April, the 'intention to occupy Palestine' was officially announced at the Transjordanian parliament and the Jewish people were 'invited to place themselves beneath King Abdullah's jurisdiction.' The intention to spare their lives was also promised. Yishuv perceived this declaration as being one of war and encourages the Western world to pressure the King, through diplomatic means, to prevent his intervention.
On 30 April, Jordanians, Egyptians and Iraqis disputed the command of Abdullah. Abdullah received the honorary title of Commander-in-Chief
, whilst the Iraqi general, Aldine Nur Mahmud, was named Chief of Staff. Despite this show of unity, it was agreed that each army would act independent of each other in the theatre of operations.
On 4 May, the Iraqi task force arrived at Mafraq
. It was composed of a regiment of armoured tanks, a regiment of mechanised infantry, and twenty-four artillery weapons, and included 1500 men. The Egyptians formed two brigades, deploying around 700 men into the Sinai. The Syrians could not put together a better force, whereas the Lebanese announced that they could not take part in military operations on 10 May.
It was only two days before, on 8 May, that the British Foreign Office was certain of the Arab invasion. Whereas British analysts considered that all Arab armies, except the Arab Legion, were not prepared for the engagements to come, the Egyptian officers claimed that their advance would be 'a parade with the least risk,' and that their army 'would be in Tel-Aviv after just two weeks.'
The state of preparation of the army was such that they did not even have maps of Palestine. At the time, the final plans of invasion had not even been established yet. British leaders tried in vain to make the Arab leaders reconsider their decision, and Ismail Safwat resigned in indifference, but the Arab states seemed resolute. On 15 May 1948, the Arab League
announced officially that it would intervene in Palestine to guarantee the security and right to self-determination of the inhabitants of Palestine in an independent state. On that day, the Azzam Pasha is often claimed to have declared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades", but this has been disproved
.
According to Benny Morris
, the result of these five and a half months of fighting was a "decisive Jewish victory". On one side, the "Palestinian Arab military power was crushed" and most of the population was fleeing or had been driven out. On the other side, the "Haganah transformed from a militia into an army" and succeeded "in consolidating its hold on a continuous strip of territory embracing the Coastal Plain, the Jezreel Valley, and the Jordan Valley". The Yishuv proved it had the capability to defend itself, persuading the United States and the remainder of the world to support it and the "victory over the Palestinian Arabs gave the Haganah the experience and self-confidence [...] to confront [...] the invading armies of the Arab states."
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the state of Israel
and the 1948 Palestine war
entered its second phase with the intervention of the Arab state armies and the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
.
This period constitutes the first phase of the 1948 Palestine war
1948 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war refers to the events in the British Mandate of Palestine between the United Nations vote on the partition plan on November 30, 1947, to the end of the first Arab-Israeli war on July 20, 1949.The war is divided into two phases:...
, during which the Jewish
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
and Arab communities of Palestine clashed, while the British, who had the obligation to maintain order, organised their withdrawal and intervened only on an occasional basis.
The next phase of the conflict was the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
which began on 15 May 1948, on the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel, when the conflict in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
became an outright war between the new State of Israel and its Arab neighbours.
Synopsis
In the immediate aftermath of the United Nations' approval of the Partition plan, the explosions of joy amongst the Jewish community were counterbalanced by the expression of discontent amongst the Arab community. Soon after, violence broke out and became more and more prevalent. Murders, reprisals, and counter-reprisals came fast on each other's heels, resulting in dozens of victims killed on both sides in the process. The impasse persisted as no force intervened to put a stop to the escalating cycles of violenceAccording to Benny Morris
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
, much of the fighting in the first months of the war took place in and on the edges of the main towns, and was initiated by the Arabs. It included Arab snipers firing at Jewish houses, pedestrians, and traffic, as well as planting bombs and mines along urban and rural paths and roads. Morris also says that by the end of March 1948, the Yishuv had suffered about a thousand dead. According to Ilan Pappe
Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies, and political activist...
, by January 1948, 400 Jewish settlers had been killed while attempting to maintain contact with isolated Zionist settlements established "in the heart of Palestinian [Arab] areas", while 1500 Arabs had been killed in the "random bombardments and shellings of their villages and neighbourhoods". According to Yoav Gelber, by the end of March, there was a total of 2,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. These figures correspond to an average of more than 100 deaths and 200 casualties per week in a population of 2,000,000.
From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarised, with the intervention of a number of Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
regiments inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
and Samaria
Samaria
Samaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...
. Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and fighter who in late 1933 founded the secret militant group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle, , which he and Hasan Salama commanded as the Army of the Holy War during the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and during the 1948...
came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War
Army of the Holy War
The Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army was a force of Palestinian Arab irregulars in the 1947-48 Palestinian civil war led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama. The force has been described as Husayni's "personal" army...
. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. To counter this, the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
authorities tried to supply the city with convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, Al-Hussayni's tactic had paid off. Almost all of Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed. The situation for those who dwelt in the Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev
Negev
The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The Arabs, including the native Bedouin population of the region, refer to the desert as al-Naqab. The origin of the word Neghebh is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'...
and North of Galilee was even more critical.
While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, the Arab population was more affected by the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed. Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards.
This situation caused the USA to withdraw their support for the Partition plan, thus encouraging the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to partition. The British, on the other hand, decided on 7 February 1948, to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan
Transjordan
The Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory in the Southern Levant that was part of the British Mandate of Palestine...
.
Although a certain level of doubt took hold amongst Yishuv supporters, their apparent defeats were due more to their wait-and-see policy than to weakness. Ben-Gurion reorganised Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and woman in the country had to receive military training. Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir
Golda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin's decision to support the Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able to sign very important armament contracts in the East. Other Haganah agents recuperated stockpiles from the Second World War, which helped improve the army's equipment and logistics. Operation Balak allowed arms and other equipment to be transported for the first time by the end of March.
Ben-Gurion invested Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin on 21 March 1917, died 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.-Early life and military career:...
with the responsibility to come up with a plan in preparation for the announced intervention of the Arab states. The result of his analysis was Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet, or Plan D, was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in Palestine in autumn 1947 to spring 1948. Its purpose is much debated...
, which was put in place from the start of April onwards. The adoption of Plan Dalet marked the second stage of the war, in which Haganah passed from the defensive to the offensive.
The first operation, named Nachshon
Operation Nachshon
Operation Nachshon was an Jewish military operation during the 1948 war. Lasting from 5–20 April 1948, its objective was to break the Siege of Jerusalem by opening the Tel-Aviv - Jerusalem road blockaded by Palestinian Arabs and to supply food and weapons to the isolated Jewish community of...
, consisted of lifting the blockade on Jerusalem
Siege of Jerusalem (1948)
The Battle for Jerusalem occurred from 30 November 1947 to 11 June 1948 when Jewish and Arab population of Mandatory Palestine and later Israeli and Jordanian armies fought for the control of the city....
. 1500 men from Haganah's Givati brigade and Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
's Harel brigade conducted sorties to free up the route to the city between 5 April and 20 April.
The operation was successful, and enough foodstuffs to last 2 months were trucked into to Jerusalem for distribution to the Jewish population. The success of the operation was assisted by the death of Al-Hassayni in combat. During this time, and independently of Haganah or the framework of Plan Dalet, irregular troops from Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
and Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
formations massacred a substantial number of Arabs at Deir Yassin
Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Arab village of roughly 600 people...
, an event which, though publicly deplored and criticised by the principal Jewish authorities, had a deep impact on the morale of the Arab population.
At the same time, the first large-scale operation of the Arab Liberation Army ended in a "débâcle", having been roundly defeated at Mishmar HaEmek
Mishmar HaEmek
Mishmar HaEmek is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the western Jezreel Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of Megiddo Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 964....
, coinciding with the loss of their Druze
Druze
The Druze are an esoteric, monotheistic religious community, found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, which emerged during the 11th century from Ismailism. The Druze have an eclectic set of beliefs that incorporate several elements from Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism...
allies through defection.
Within the framework of the establishment of Jewish territorial continuity foreseen by Plan Dalet, the forces of Haganah, Palmach and Irgun intended to conquer mixed zones. Palestinian Arab society was shaken. Tiberias, Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
, Beisan, Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
and Acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
fell, resulting in the flight of more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs.
The British had, at that time, essentially withdrawn their troops. The situation pushed the leaders of the neighbouring Arab states to intervene, but their preparation was not finalised, and they could not assemble sufficient forces to turn the tide of the war. The majority of Palestinian Arab hopes lay with the Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I, but he had no intention of creating a Palestinian Arab-run state, since he hoped to annex as much of the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine as he could. He was playing a double-game, being just as much in contact with the Jewish authorities as with the Arab League.
In preparation for the offensive, Haganah successfully launched Operations Yiftah and Ben-'Ami to secure the Jewish settlements of Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, and Operation Kilshon
Operation Kilshon
From May 13, 1948 until May 18, 1948 Jewish forces from the Haganah and Irgun executed Operation Kilshon . Its aim was to capture the Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem particularly Talbiya in central Jerusalem....
, which created a united front around Jerusalem. The inconclusive meeting between Golda Meir
Golda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
and Abdullah I, followed by the Kfar Etzion massacre
Kfar Etzion massacre
The Kfar Etzion massacre was an act committed by Arab armed forces on May 13, 1948, the day before the Declaration of Independence of the state of Israel.-Background:...
on 13 May by the Arab Legion led to predictions that the battle for Jerusalem would be merciless.
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion
' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...
declared the independence of the state of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and the 1948 Palestine war
1948 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war refers to the events in the British Mandate of Palestine between the United Nations vote on the partition plan on November 30, 1947, to the end of the first Arab-Israeli war on July 20, 1949.The war is divided into two phases:...
entered its second phase with the intervention of the Arab state armies and the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
.
Background
Under the control of a British administration since 1920, the area of Palestine found itself the object of a battle between Jewish ZionistZionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
nationalists and Palestinian Arab
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
nationalists, who opposed one another just as much as they both opposed the British 'occupation.'
The Palestinian Arab backlash culminated in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. Directed by Palestinian Arab nationalists, the rebels opposed Zionism, the British presence in Palestine and Palestinian Arab politicians who called for pan-Arabic nationalism at the same time. Both the British and the Zionist organisations of the time opposed the revolt; nonetheless, the Palestinian Arab nationalists did obtain from the British a drastic reduction of Jewish immigration, legislated by the 1939 White Paper. However, the consequences of the unsuccessful uprising were heavy. Nearly 5,000 Arabs and 500 Jews died; the various paramilitary Zionist organisations were reinforced, and the majority of the members of the Palestinian Arab political elite exiled themselves, such as Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the British Mandate of Palestine. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot...
, chief of the Arab High Committee, who took refuge in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, where he would help to recruit Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s for the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
.
After World War II and the horrors of The Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, the Zionist movement gained attention and sympathy. In Mandatory Palestine, Zionist groups fought against the British occupation. The Palestinian Arab nationalists reorganised themselves, but their organisation remained inferior to that of the Zionists. Nevertheless, the weakening of the colonial British Empire reinforced Arab countries and the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
for the future war against newly founded Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
1947 UN Partition Plan
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was created by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in 1947 to replace the British Mandate for Palestine with "Independent Arab and Jewish States" and a "Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem" administered by the United...
with the support of the big global powers, but not that of Britain nor the Arabic nations.
Beginning of the Civil War (30 November 1947 – 1 April 1948)
In the aftermath of the adoption of the United Nations' partition plan, the manifestations of joy of the Jewish community were counterbalanced by protests by Arabs throughout the country and after 1 December, the Arab Higher CommitteeArab Higher Committee
The Arab Higher Committee was the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans under the mufti's...
enacted a general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
that lasted three days.
A 'wind of violence' rapidly took hold of the country, foreboding civil war between the two communities.
Rise of violence
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, increasingly violent attacks, reprisals and counter-reprisals followed each other. Isolated shootings evolved into all-out battle
Battle
Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...
s. Attacks against traffic, for instance, turned into ambushes as one bloody attack led to another.
The first casualties of the war were passengers on a Jewish bus driving on the Coastal Plain near Kfar Sirkin
Kfar Sirkin
Kfar Sirkin or Kefar Syrkin is a moshav in Israel within the municipal jurisdiction of the Drom HaSharon Regional Council near the city of Petah Tikva. Founded in 1933, it was named after the famous Zionist Nachman Syrkin....
at 8:20 on 30 November. An eight-man gang from Jaffa, led by Seif al-Din Abu Kishk, ambushed the bus killing five and wounding others. Half an hour later they ambushed a second bus, southbound from Hadera
Hadera
Hadera is a city located in the Haifa District of Israel approximately from the major cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa. The city is located along of the Israeli Mediterranean Coastal Plain...
, killing two more. Later that morning, Arab snipers began to fire from Jaffa's Manshiya neighbourhood into southern Tel Aviv, killing at least one person. Shots were also fired at Jewish buses in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
and Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
followed a strategy of placing bombs in crowded markets and bus-stops. As on 30 December, in Haifa, when members of the clandestine militant Zionist group, Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
, threw two bombs at a crowd of Arab workers who were queueing in front of a refinery, killing 6 of them and injuring 42. An angry crowd killed 39 Jewish people in revenge, until British soldiers reestablished calm. In reprisals, some soldiers from the strike force, Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
and the Carmeli brigade, attacked the village
Balad al-Shaykh massacre
Balad al-Shaykh, was an Arab village, now part of the Israeli town of Nesher where a massacre was perpetrated on the night of December 31, 1947, to January 1, 1948...
of Balad ash-Sheikh and Hawassa. According to different historians, this attack led to between 21 and 70 deaths.
On 22 February 1948, supporters of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the British Mandate of Palestine. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot...
organised, with the help of certain British deserters, three attacks against the Jewish community. Using car bomb
Car bomb
A car bomb, or truck bomb also known as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device , is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle,...
s aimed at the headquarters of the pro-Zionist Palestine Post, the Ben Yehuda St. market and the backyard of the Jewish Agency's offices, they killed 22, 53 and 13 Jewish people respectively, and injured hundreds. In retaliation, Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
put a landmine on the railroad track in Rehovot
Rehovot
Rehovot is a city in the Center District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a total population of 112,700. Rehovot's official website estimates the population at 114,000.Rehovot was built on the site of Doron,...
on which a train from Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
to Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
was travelling, killing 28 British soldiers and injuring 35. This would be copied on 31 March, close to Caesarea Maritima, which would lead to the death of forty people, injuring 60, who were, for the most part, Arab civilians.
Between December 1947 and January 1948, it was estimated that around 1,000 people were killed and 2,000 injured. By the end of March, a report stated that 2,000 had been killed and 4,000 injured. These figures correspond to an average of over 100 deaths and 200 injuries per week, all of this in a country with 2,000,000 inhabitants.
Geographic situation of the Jewish zones
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
im, or settlements, were very dispersed. Communication between the coastal area—which was the most developed in terms of Jewish settlements—and the peripheral settlements was carried out by road links. These road links were an easy target for attacks, as the majority of them passed through or near entirely Arab localities. The isolation of the 100,000 Jewish people in Jerusalem and other Jewish settlements outside the coastal zone, such as kibbutz Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion is a religious Israeli settlement and kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank. It has a population of 400 and falls under the jurisdiction of Gush Etzion Regional Council...
, halfway on the strategic road between Jerusalem and Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
, the 27 settlements in the Southern region of Negev
Negev
The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The Arabs, including the native Bedouin population of the region, refer to the desert as al-Naqab. The origin of the word Neghebh is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'...
and the settlements to the north of Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, were a weak strategic point for Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
.
The possibility of evacuating these difficult to defend zones was considered, but the policy of Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
was set by David Ben-Gurion. He stated that 'what the Jewish people have has to be conserved. No Jewish person should abandon his or her house, farm, kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
or job without authorisation. Every outpost, every colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
, whether it is isolated or not, must be occupied as though it were Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
itself. No Jewish settlement was evacuated until the invasion of May 1948. Only a dozen kibbutzim in Galilee as well as those of Gush Etzion sent women and children into the safer interior zones.
Ben Gurion gave instructions that the settlements of Negev be reinforced in number of men and goods, in particular the kibbutzim of Kfar Darom
Kfar Darom
Kfar Darom was a kibbutz and an Israeli settlement within the Gush Katif bloc in the Gaza Strip.-Original kibbutz:Kfar Darom was founded on 250 dunams of land purchased in 1930 by Tuvia Miller for a fruit orchard on the site of an ancient Jewish settlement of the same name mentioned in the Talmud...
and Yad Mordechai
Yad Mordechai
Yad Mordechai is a kibbutz in southern Israel. Located 10 km south of Ashkelon, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 710.-History:...
(both close to Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
), Revivim
Revivim
Revivim showers) is a kibbutz in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Located around half an hour south of Beersheba, it falls under the jurisdiction of Ramat HaNegev Regional Council...
(south of Beersheba
Beersheba
Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 194,300....
) and Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion is a religious Israeli settlement and kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank. It has a population of 400 and falls under the jurisdiction of Gush Etzion Regional Council...
. Conscious of the danger that weighed upon Negev, the supreme command of Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
assigned a whole Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
battalion there.
Jerusalem
Siege of Jerusalem (1948)
The Battle for Jerusalem occurred from 30 November 1947 to 11 June 1948 when Jewish and Arab population of Mandatory Palestine and later Israeli and Jordanian armies fought for the control of the city....
and the great difficulty of accessing the city became even more critical to its Jewish population, who made up one sixth of the total Jewish population in Palestine. The route from Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
to Jerusalem was long and precipitous, which, after leaving the Jewish zone at Hulda
Khulda
Khulda was a Palestinian Arab village located south of Ramla in the Mandatory Palestine. Known as Huldre to the Crusaders, it is also mentioned in documents dating to the periods of Mamluk, Ottoman, and Mandatory rule over Palestine. During the 1948 war, the village was depopulated as part of...
, went through the foothills of Latrun
Latrun
Latrun is a strategic hilltop in the Ayalon Valley in Israel overlooking the road to Jerusalem. It is located 25 kilometers west of Jerusalem and 14 kilometers southeast of Ramla.-Etymology:...
. Then, the 28-kilometre route between Bab al-Wad and Jerusalem took no less than 3 hours, and the route passed the vicinity of the Arab villages of Saris
Saris
Saris was a Palestinian Arab village that was depopulated during the major offensive launched by the Haganah on 6 April 1948. Called Operation Nachshon, and launched before the British had left Palestine, its objective was to capture villages between Jerusalem and the coastal plain.-History:During...
, Qaluniya
Qalunya
Qalunya was a Palestinian Arab village located west of Jerusalem.Prior to the village's destruction in 1948, with the exception of 166 dunums, Qalunya's land was privately owned: 3,594 dunums were owned by Arabs, while 1,084 dunums were owned by Jews....
, Al-Qastal
Al-Qastal
Al-Qastal was a Palestinian village that was depopulated in the lead up the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.- History :Under the name of Belveer or Beauverium, Qastal belonged to the Hospitalers by c. 1168 and was listed amongst the castles supposedly destroyed by al-Adil in 1191–2...
and Deir Yassin
Deir Yassin
Deir Yassin was a Palestinian Arab village of around 600 people near Jerusalem. It had declared its neutrality during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine between Arabs and Jews...
.
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni's strategy
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and fighter who in late 1933 founded the secret militant group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle, , which he and Hasan Salama commanded as the Army of the Holy War during the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and during the 1948...
arrived in Jerusalem with the intent to surround and besiege its Jewish community. He moved to Surif
Surif
Surif is a Palestinian town in the Hebron Governorate located 25 km northwest of the city of Hebron. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics census, Surif had a population of 13,365 in 2007. The population is entirely Muslim....
, a village to the southwest of Jerusalem, with his supporters—around a hundred fighters who were trained in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
before the war and who served as officers in his army, Jihad al-Muqadas
Army of the Holy War
The Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army was a force of Palestinian Arab irregulars in the 1947-48 Palestinian civil war led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama. The force has been described as Husayni's "personal" army...
, or Army of the Holy War. He was joined by a hundred or so young villagers and Arab veterans of the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
. His militia soon had several thousand men, and it moved its training quarters to Bir Zeit
Bir Zeit
Birzeit is a Palestinian town near Ramallah in the central West Bank. Its population in the 2007 census was 4529...
, a town near Ramallah
Ramallah
Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
. Its zone of influence extended up to Lydda
Lod
Lod is a city located on the Sharon Plain southeast of Tel Aviv in the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2010, it had a population of 70,000, roughly 75 percent Jewish and 25 percent Arab.The name is derived from the Biblical city of Lod...
and Ramleh, where Hasan Salama
Hasan Salama
Hasan Salama or Hassan Salameh was a commander of the Palestinian Holy War Army in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War along with Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni.- Biography :...
—a veteran of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine—commanded 1,000 men and co-ordinated, with al-Husayni, a plan of disruption and harassment of road traffic.
On 10 December, the first organised attack occurred when ten members of a convoy between Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
and Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion is a religious Israeli settlement and kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank. It has a population of 400 and falls under the jurisdiction of Gush Etzion Regional Council...
were killed.
On 14 January, Abd al-Qadir himself commanded and took part in an attack against Kfar Etzion, in which 1,000 Palestinian Arab combatants were involved. The attack was a failure, and 200 of al-Husayni's men died. Nonetheless, the attack did not come without losses of Jewish lives: a detachment of 35 Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
men who sought to reinforce the establishment were ambushed and killed.
On 25 January, a large scale attack took place in the Arab village of al-Qastal
Al-Qastal
Al-Qastal was a Palestinian village that was depopulated in the lead up the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.- History :Under the name of Belveer or Beauverium, Qastal belonged to the Hospitalers by c. 1168 and was listed amongst the castles supposedly destroyed by al-Adil in 1191–2...
. Due to an appeal by al-Husayni, many people from several Arab-majority villages situated in the northeast of Jerusalem joined the attack, although others did not, for fear of reprisals. The campaign for control over the roads became increasingly militaristic in nature, and became a focal point of the Arab war effort. After 22 March, supply convoys to Jerusalem stopped, due to a convoy of around thirty vehicles having been destroyed in the gorges of Bab-el-Wad.
On 27 March, an important supply convoy from Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion is a religious Israeli settlement and kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank. It has a population of 400 and falls under the jurisdiction of Gush Etzion Regional Council...
was taken in an ambush in southern Jerusalem. They were forced to surrender all of their arms, ammunition and vehicles to al-Husayni's forces. The Jews of Jerusalem requested the assistance of the United Kingdom after 24 hours of combat. According to a British report, the situation in Jerusalem, where a food rationing system was already in application, risked becoming desperate after 15 May.
The situation in other areas of the country was as critical as the one of Jerusalem. The settlements of Negev were utterly isolated, due to the impossibility of using the Southern coastal road, which passed through zones densely populated by Arabs. On 27 March, a convoy of supplies (the Yehiam convoy) that was intended for the isolated kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
im north-west of Galilee was attacked in the vicinity of Nahariya
Nahariya
Nahariya is the northernmost coastal city in Israel, with an estimated population of 51,200.-History:Nahariya was founded by German Jewish immigrants from the Fifth Aliyah in the 1930s...
. In the ensuing battle, 42–47 Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
combatants and around a hundred fighters of the Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
were killed, and all vehicles involved were destroyed.
Death toll and analysis
In the last week of March alone, the losses sustained by Haganah were particularly heavy: they lost three large convoys in ambushes, more than 100 soldiers and their fleet of armored vehicles.All in all, West Jerusalem was gradually 'choked;' the settlements of Galilee could not be reached in any other way but via the valley of Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
and the road of Nahariya
Nahariya
Nahariya is the northernmost coastal city in Israel, with an estimated population of 51,200.-History:Nahariya was founded by German Jewish immigrants from the Fifth Aliyah in the 1930s...
, bots for the foreseen attack of the Arab states in May, and the earlier projected departure date of the British pushed Haganah to the offensive and to apply Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet, or Plan D, was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in Palestine in autumn 1947 to spring 1948. Its purpose is much debated...
from April onwards.
Intervention of foreign forces in Palestine
The British either could not or did not want to impede the intervention of foreign forces into Palestine. According to a special report by the UN Special Commission on Palestine:
- During the night of 20–21 January, a troop composed of 700 SyriansSyrian peopleThe Syrian people are the inhabitants and citizens of Syria. Syrians are tied together by geography, linguistic heritage, religion, and similar Eastern Mediterranean ethnicities...
in battle dress, equipped well and in control of mechanised transport, enters Palestine 'via TransjordanTransjordanThe Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory in the Southern Levant that was part of the British Mandate of Palestine...
.' - On 27 January, 'a band of 300 men from outside Palestine, was established in the area of SafedSafedSafed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
in GalileeGalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
and was probably responsible for the intensive heavy weapon and mortarMortar (weapon)A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
attacks the following week against the settlement of Yechiam.' - In the night of 29 January-30 January, a battalion commanded by Fawzi al-QawuqjiFawzi Al-QawuqjiFawzi al-Qawuqji was the field commander of the Arab Liberation Army during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in Palestine, and a rival of the principal Palestinian Arab leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.-Biography:...
that consisted of 950 men in 19 vehicles was deployed by the Arab Liberation ArmyArab Liberation ArmyThe Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
and entered Palestine 'via Adam Bridge and dispersed itself around the villages of NablusNablusNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
, JeninJeninJenin is the largest town in the Northern West Bank, and the third largest city overall. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major agricultural center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, the city had a population of 120,004 not including the adjacent refugee...
and Tulkarem.'
This description corresponds to the entry of Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
troops between 10 January and the start of March:
- The Second regiment of YarmoukYarmouk RiverThe Yarmouk River is the largest tributary of the Jordan River. It drains much of the Hauran Plateau. It is one of three main tributaries which enter the Jordan between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. To the south, are the Jabbok/Zarqa and the Arnon/Wadi Mujib) rivers...
, under the orders of Adib ShishakliAdib ShishakliAdib ibn Hasan Shishakli was a Syrian military leader and President of Syria .Born into a notable Syrian-Kurdish family of Hama, Shishakli served with the French Army during the mandate era...
entered GalileeGalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
via LebanonLebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
on the night of 11–12 January. The battalion passed through SafedSafedSafed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
and then settled in the village of Sasa. A third of the regiment's fighters were Palestinian Arab, and a quarter were SyrianSyrian peopleThe Syrian people are the inhabitants and citizens of Syria. Syrians are tied together by geography, linguistic heritage, religion, and similar Eastern Mediterranean ethnicities...
. - The 1st Yarmouk regiment, commanded by Muhammad Tzafa, entered Palestine on the night of 20–21 January, via the Bridge of Damia from JordanJordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
and disperses around SamariaSamariaSamaria, or the Shomron is a term used for a mountainous region roughly corresponding to the northern part of the West Bank.- Etymology :...
, where it established its HQ, in the Northern Samarian city of TubasTubasTubas or Toubas is a small Palestinian city in the northeastern West Bank, located northeast of Nablus, a few kilometers west of the Jordan River. A city of over 16,000 inhabitants, it serves as the economic and administrative center of the Tubas Governorate. Its urban area consists of 2,271 dunams...
. The regiment is composed chiefly of Palestinian ArabsPalestinian peopleThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...
and IraqisIraqi peopleThe Iraqi people or Mesopotamian people are natives or inhabitants of the country of Iraq, known since antiquity as Mesopotamia , with a large diaspora throughout the Arab World, Europe, the Americas, and...
. - The Hittin regiment, commanded by Madlul Abbas, settled in the west of Samaria with its headquarters in Tulkarem.
- The Hussein ibn Ali regiment provided reinforcement in HaifaHaifaHaifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
, JaffaJaffaJaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
, Jerusalem and several other cities. - The Qadassia regiment were reserves based in Jab'a.
Fawzi al-Qawuqji
Fawzi Al-Qawuqji
Fawzi al-Qawuqji was the field commander of the Arab Liberation Army during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in Palestine, and a rival of the principal Palestinian Arab leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.-Biography:...
, Field Commander of the Arab Liberation Army, arrived, according to himself, on 4 March, with the rest of the logistics and around 100 Bosniak
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...
volunteers in Jab'a, a small village on the route between Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
and Jenin
Jenin
Jenin is the largest town in the Northern West Bank, and the third largest city overall. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major agricultural center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, the city had a population of 120,004 not including the adjacent refugee...
. He established a headquarters there and a training centre for Palestinian Arab volunteers.
Alan Cunningham, the British High Commissioner
High Commissioner
High Commissioner is the title of various high-ranking, special executive positions held by a commission of appointment.The English term is also used to render various equivalent titles in other languages.-Bilateral diplomacy:...
in Palestine, thoroughly protested against the incursions and the fact that 'no serious effort is being made to stop incursions'. The only reaction came from Alec Kirkbride, who complained to Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
about Cunningham's 'hostile tone and threats'.
The British and the information service of Yishuv expected an offensive for 15 February, but it would not take place, seemingly because the Mufti troops were not ready.
In March, an Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i regiment of the Arab Liberation Army came to reinforce the Palestinian Arab troops of Salameh
Hasan Salama
Hasan Salama or Hassan Salameh was a commander of the Palestinian Holy War Army in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War along with Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni.- Biography :...
in the area around Lydda
Lod
Lod is a city located on the Sharon Plain southeast of Tel Aviv in the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2010, it had a population of 70,000, roughly 75 percent Jewish and 25 percent Arab.The name is derived from the Biblical city of Lod...
and Ramleh, whilst Al-Hussayni started a headquarters in Bir Zeit, 10 km to the north of Ramallah. At the same time, a number of North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n troops, principally Libyan
Libyan
A Libyan is a person or thing of, from, or related to Libya in North Africa.The term Libyan may also refer to:* A person from Libya, or of Libyan descent. For information about the Libyan people, see Demographics of Libya and Culture of Libya. For specific persons, see List of Libyans.* Libyan...
s, and hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers is the world's oldest and one of the largest Islamist parties, and is the largest political opposition organization in many Arab states. It was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna and by the late 1940s had an...
entered Palestine. In March, an initial regiment arrived in Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
and certain militants amongst them reached Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
.
Morale of the fighters
The Arab combatants' initial victories reinforced morale amongst them. The Arab Higher CommitteeArab Higher Committee
The Arab Higher Committee was the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans under the mufti's...
was confident and decided to prevent the set-up of the UN-backed partition plan. In an announcement made to the Secretary-General on 6 February, they declared:
At the beginning of February 1948, the morale of the Jewish leaders was not high: 'distress and despair arose clearly from the notes taken at the meetings of the Mapai party.' 'The attacks against the Jewish settlements and main roads worsened the direction of the Jewish people, who underestimated the intensity of the Arab reaction. The situation of the 100,000 Jewish people situated in Jerusalem was precarious, and supplies to the city, already slim in number, were likely to be stopped. Nonetheless, despite the setbacks suffered, the Jewish forces, in particular Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
, remained superior in number and quality to those of the Arab forces.
The first wave of Palestinian refugees
The high morale of the Arab fighters and politicians was not shared by the Palestinian Arab civilian population. The UN Palestine Commission reported 'Panic continues to increase, however, throughout the Arab middle classes, and there is a steady exodus of those who can afford to leave the country. 'From December 1947 to January 1948, around 70,000 Arabs fled, and, by the end of March, that number had grown to around 100,000.These people were part of the first wave of Palestinian refugees of the conflict. Mostly the middle and upper classes fled, including the majority of the families of local governors and representatives of the Arab Higher Committee
Arab Higher Committee
The Arab Higher Committee was the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans under the mufti's...
. Non-Palestinian Arabs also fled in large numbers. Most of them did not abandon the hope of returning to Palestine once the hostilities had ended.
Policies of foreign powers
Many decisions were made abroad that had an important influence over the outcome of the conflict.Britain and the Jordanian choice
Mufti
A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...
, and opted unofficially instead, on 7 February 1948, to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Abdullah I of Jordan
Abdullah I of Jordan
Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, King of Jordan [‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Husayn] عبد الله الأول بن الحسين born in Mecca, Second Saudi State, was the second of three sons of Sherif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca and his first wife Abdiyya bint Abdullah...
. At a meeting in London between the commander of Transjordan
Transjordan
The Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory in the Southern Levant that was part of the British Mandate of Palestine...
's Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
, Glubb Pasha, and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, commonly referred to as the Foreign Secretary, is a senior member of Her Majesty's Government heading the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and regarded as one of the Great Offices of State...
, Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
, the two parties agreed that they would facilitate the entry of the Arab Legion into Palestine on 15 May and that the Arab part of Palestine be occupied by it. However, they held that the Arab Legion not enter the vicinity of Jerusalem or the Jewish state itself. This option did not envisage a Palestinian Arab state. Although the ambitions of King Abdullah are known, it is not apparent to what extent the authorities of Yishuv, the Arab Higher Committee
Arab Higher Committee
The Arab Higher Committee was the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans under the mufti's...
or the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
knew of this decision.
The American U-turn
In Mid-March, after the increasing disorder in Palestine and faced with the fear, later judged unfounded, of an Arab petrol embargo, the American administration announced the possible withdrawal of its support for the UN's partition plan and for the dispatching of an international force to guarantee its implementation. The US, instead, suggested that Palestine be put under UN supervision. On 1 April, the UN Security Council voted on the American proposal of a convocation of a special assembly intended to reconsider the Palestinian problem, a proposal for which the SovietsSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
abstained from voting. This U-turn from the Americans caused concern and debate amongst Yishuv authorities, who could not, after the withdrawal of British troops, afford to face the Arab troops without the support of the USA. In this context, Elie Sasson, the director of the Arab section of Jewish Agency, and several other personalities, ended up convincing David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meyerson
Golda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
to advance a diplomatic initiative towards the Arabs. The job of negotiation was delegated to Joshua Palmon, who was prohibited from limiting the Haganah's liberty of action but was authorised to declare that 'the Jewish people were ready with a truce.'
The logistical support of the Eastern bloc
In the context of the embargo imposed upon Palestinian belligerents—Jewish and Arab alike—and the dire lack of goods in Palestine, Stalin's decision to not adhere to the embargo and support the country by exporting CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
n goods played a role in the war that was differently appreciated.
Motivations advanced as regards to Stalin's choice include his support towards the UN Partition plan and his interest in financially aiding Czechoslovakia to lessen their financial frustration after he refused to allow them to receive Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
assistance.
The extent of this support and the concrete role that it played is up for debate. Figures advanced by historians tend to vary. Yoav Gelber spoke of 'small deliveries from Czechoslovakia arriving by air [...] from April 1948 onwards' whereas various historians have argued that there was an unbalanced level of support in favour of Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
, given that the Palestinian Arabs did not benefit from an equivalent level of Soviet support. In any case, the embargo that was extended to all Arab states in May 1948 by the UN Security Council caused great problems to them.
Arab leaders' refusal of direct involvement
Arab leaders 'did what they possibly could to avoid being directly involved' in support for the Palestinian cause.At the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
summit of October 1947, in Aley
Aley
Aley is a picturesque town in Mount Lebanon. It is located 17 km uphill from Beirut, just south of the summer resort of Bhamdoun and north of the strategic town of Souk El Gharb.-Demographics:...
, the Iraqi general, Ismail Safwat, painted a realist picture of the situation. He underlined the better organisation and greater financial support of the Jewish people in comparison to the Palestinians. He recommended the immediate deployment of the Arab armies at the Palestinian borders, the dispatching of weapons and ammunition to the Palestinians, and the contribution of a million pounds
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
of financial aid to them. His proposals were rejected, other than the suggestion to send financial support, which was not followed up on. Nonetheless, a techno-military committee was established to coordinate assistance to the Palestinians. Based in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, it was directed by Sawfat, who was supported by Lebanese and Syrian officers and representatives of the Higher Arab Committee. A Transjordian delegate was also appointed, but he did not participate in meetings.
At the December 1947 Cairo summit, under pressure by public opinion, the Arab leaders decided to create a military command that united all the heads of all the major Arab states, headed by Safwat. They still ignored his calls for financial and military aid, preferring to defer any decision until the end of the Mandate, but, nevertheless, decide to form the Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
, which would go into action in the following weeks. On the night of 20–21 January 1948, around 700 armed Syrians entered Palestine via Transjordan. In February 1948, Safwat reiterated his demands, but they fell on deaf ears: the Arab governments hoped that the Palestinians, aided by the Arab Liberation Army, could manage on their own until the International community renounced the partition plan.
The Arms Problem
The Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
was, in theory, financed and equipped by the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
. A budget of one million pounds sterling had been promised to them, due to the insistence of Ismail Safwat. In reality, though, funding never arrived, and only Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
truly supported the Arab volunteers in concrete terms. On the ground, logistics were completely neglected, and their leader, Fawzi al-Qawuqji, envisaged that his troops survive only on the expenses accorded to them by the Palestinian population.
The situation that the Army of the Holy War
Army of the Holy War
The Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army was a force of Palestinian Arab irregulars in the 1947-48 Palestinian civil war led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama. The force has been described as Husayni's "personal" army...
and the Palestinian forces were in was worse. They could not rely on any form of foreign support and had to get by on the funds that Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the British Mandate of Palestine. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot...
could raise. The troops' armament was limited to what the fighters already had. To make things even worse, they had to be content with arms bought on the black market or pillaged from British warehouses, and, as a result, did not really have enough arms to wage war.
The situation in which Jewish fighters found themselves in was better than that of the Palestinian Arabs, since they benefitted from a number of clandestine factories that manufactured light weapons, ammunition and explosives. The one weapon of which there was no shortage was locally produced explosives. However, they had far less than what was necessary to carry out a war: in November, only one out of every three Jewish combatants was armed, rising to two out of three within Palmach.
However, for Ben-Gurion, the problem was not essentially having the capacity of waging war, but of constructing an army that was worthy to be a state army. The importance that he accorded to this is illustrated by the practice of combining the cabinet posts of Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, a practice that he initiated and that many of his successors follow.
To arm and equip this army, he sent agents to Europe and to the USA, thence came the essential support in terms of light arms and munitions, which began to arrive at the start of April. From June, onwards, there was also a flow of heavy arms.
Until March, Haganah suffered a lack of arms similar to that of the Army of Holy War. From April onwards, it was armed better than the Palestinians, but, after 15 May, during the first weeks of the Arab-Israeli War, the arms advantage leant in favour of the Arab states. From June, after the first truce, the advantage leant clearly towards the Israelis. This situation's changing was due to the contacts made in November 1947 and afterwards.
The Jewish armament movement was helped out after the Yishuv agents obtained a supply of Avia
Avia
Avia is a Czech aircraft and automotive company notable for producing biplane fighter aircraft, especially the B-534, and trucks.- History :...
planes from Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and, later on in the conflict, Supermarine Spitfire
Supermarine Spitfire
The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries throughout the Second World War. The Spitfire continued to be used as a front line fighter and in secondary roles into the 1950s...
s, machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
s and munitions. In the stockpiles left over from World War II, they procured all the necessary equipment, vehicles and logistics needed for an army. In France, they procured armoured vehicles despite the ongoing embargo. Jewish agents also bought machines to manufacture arms and munitions, forming the foundations of the Israeli armament industry.
In the USA, they bought a number of bombardiers and aircraft, which allowed for the transporting of arms purchased in Europe. Operation Balak was put in place to bring these arms and munitions to Israel by the end of March. Some ships were also leased out from various European ports so that these goods could be transported by 15 May. To finance all of this, Golda Meir
Golda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
managed, by the end of December, to collect $25 million through a fundraising campaign set about in the USA to capitalise on American sympathisers to the Zionist cause. Out of the 129 million US dollars raised between October 1947 and March 1949 for the Zionist cause, more than $78 million, over 60%, were used to buy arms and munition.
Reorganisation of Haganah
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
,' Ben-Gurion's second greatest achievement was his having successfully transformed Haganah from being a clandestine paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
organisation into a true army. Ben-Gurion appointed Israel Galili to the position of head of the High Command counsel of Haganah and divided Haganah into 6 infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
brigades, numbered 1 to 6, allotting a precise theatre of operation to each one. Yaakov Dori was named Chief of Staff, but it was Yigael Yadin who assumed the responsibility on the ground as chief of Operations. Palmach, commanded by Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon was an Israeli politician, a commander of the Palmach, and a general in the IDF. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda party and the Israeli Labor party, and acting Prime Minister of Israel, and was a member of the Knesset and government minister from the 10th through the...
, was divided into 3 elite brigades, numbered 10–12, and constituted the mobile force of Haganah.
On 19 November 1947, obligatory conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
was instituted for all men and women aged between 17 and 25. By end of March 21,000 people had been conscripted. On 30 March the call-up was extended to men and single women aged between 26 to 35. Five days later a General Mobilization order was issued for all men under 40.
"From November 1947, the Haganah, (...) began to change from a territorial militia into a regular army. (...) Few of the units had been well trained by December. (...) By March–April, it fielded still under-equipped battalion and brigades. By April–May, the Haganah was conducting brigade size offensive.
Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet, or Plan D, was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in Palestine in autumn 1947 to spring 1948. Its purpose is much debated...
was finalised on 10 March 1948, under the direction of Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin on 21 March 1917, died 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.-Early life and military career:...
. 75 pages long, it laid down the rules and the objects that were to be followed by Haganah during the second phase of the war. Its principal objective was to secure Yishuv's uninterrupted territorial connections, particularly in response to the war of the roads carried out by Al-Hussayni and in preparation for the Arab states' declared intervention. Plan Dalet caused quite a controversy amongst historians. Some see it as a plan which was primarily defensive and military in nature and a preparation against invasion. whereas others think that the plan was offensive in nature and aimed at conquering of as much of Palestine as possible.
Haganah on the offensive (1 April – 15 May 1948)
The second phase of the war, which began in April, marked a huge change in direction, as Haganah moved to the offensive.In this stage, Arab forces were composed of around 10,000 men among which between 3,000 and 5,000 foreign volunteers serving in the Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
. Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
and Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
forces were steadily increasing. In March, they aligned around 15,000 men and in May around 30,000 who were better equipped, trained and organised.
The armed Palestinian groups were roundly defeated, Yishuv took control of some of the principal routes that linked the Jewish settlements, and as a consequence, Jerusalem was able to receive supplies again. Palestinian society collapsed. Many mixed cities were taken by the Haganah as well as Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
. A massive exodus was triggered.
Operation Nachshon (2–20 April)
The first orders were given on 2 April 1948 with diversion attacks including Qastel. Between 5–20 April 1500 men from the Givati and Harel brigades took control of the road to Jerusalem and allowed 3 or 4 convoys to reach the city.
The operation was a military success. All the Arab villages that blocked the route were either taken or destroyed, and the Jewish forces were victorious in all their engagements. Nonetheless, not all the objectives of the operation were achieved, since only 1800 tonnes of the 3,000 envisaged were transported to the city, and two months of severe rationing had to be assumed.
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and fighter who in late 1933 founded the secret militant group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle, , which he and Hasan Salama commanded as the Army of the Holy War during the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and during the 1948...
was killed during the night of 7–8 April, in the midst of the battles taking place in Al-Qastal
Al-Qastal
Al-Qastal was a Palestinian village that was depopulated in the lead up the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.- History :Under the name of Belveer or Beauverium, Qastal belonged to the Hospitalers by c. 1168 and was listed amongst the castles supposedly destroyed by al-Adil in 1191–2...
. The loss of this charismatic Palestinian leader 'disrupted the Arab strategy and organisation in the area of Jerusalem.' His successor, Emil Ghuri, changed tactics: instead of provoking a series of ambushes throughout the route, he had a huge road block erected at Bab-el-Oued, and Jerusalem was once again isolated as a consequence.
Operation Nachshon exposed the poor military organisation of the Palestinian paramilitary groups. Due to lack of logistics, particularly food and ammunition, they were incapable of maintaining engagements that were more than a few hours away from their permanent bases.
Faced with these events, the Arab Higher Committee
Arab Higher Committee
The Arab Higher Committee was the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans under the mufti's...
asked Alan Cunningham to allow the return of the Mufti, the only person capable of redressing the situation. Despite obtaining permission, the Mufti did not get to Jerusalem. His declining prestige cleared the way for the expansion of the influence of the Arab Liberation Army and of Fawzi al-Kawukji in the Jerusalem area.
The Battle of Mishmar HaEmek (4–15 April)
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
that was founded by Mapam
Mapam
Mapam was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.-History:Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook and represented...
in 1930, in the Jezreel Valley
Jezreel Valley
-Etymology:The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel which was located on a low hill overlooking the southern edge of the valley, though some scholars think that the name of the city originates from the name of the clan which founded it, and whose existence is mentioned in...
, close to the road between Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
and Jenin
Jenin
Jenin is the largest town in the Northern West Bank, and the third largest city overall. It serves as the administrative center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major agricultural center for the surrounding towns. In 2007, the city had a population of 120,004 not including the adjacent refugee...
that passes the Megiddo kibbutz
Megiddo (kibbutz)
Megiddo is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the Jezreel Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of Megiddo Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 356....
. It is situated in a place that Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
officers considered to be on one of the most likely axes of penetration for a 'major Arab attack' against the Yishuv.
On 4 April, the Arab Liberation Army launched an attack on the kibbutz with the support of artillery. The attack was fought off by the members of the kibbutz, who were supported by Haganah soldiers. The artillery fire that had almost totally destroyed the kibbutz was stopped by a British column, who arrived on the scene by order of General MacMillan, and, on 7 April, Fawzi Al-Qawuqji
Fawzi Al-Qawuqji
Fawzi al-Qawuqji was the field commander of the Arab Liberation Army during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in Palestine, and a rival of the principal Palestinian Arab leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.-Biography:...
accepted a 24-hour ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
, but required that the kibbutz be surrendered. The inhabitants of the kibbutz evacuated their children, and, after having consulted Tel-Aviv, refused to surrender.
On 8 or 9 April, Haganah prepared a counter-offensive, with accordance to Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet, or Plan D, was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in Palestine in autumn 1947 to spring 1948. Its purpose is much debated...
. Yitzhak Sadeh
Yitzhak Sadeh
Yitzhak Sadeh , was the commander of the Palmach, one of the founders of the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel and a cousin of British philosopher Isaiah Berlin.-Biography:...
was put in charge of operations, with the order to 'clean out' the region. The battle lasted until 15 April. Sadeh's men besieged all the villages around the kibbutz, and the Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
had to retreat to its bases in Jabba. The majority of the inhabitants of the region fled, but those who did not were either imprisoned or expelled to Jenin. The villages were plundered by some kibbutz
Kibbutz
A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...
nikim and razed to the ground with explosives.
According to Morris
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
, the Arab Liberation Army soldiers were demoralised by reports of the Deir Yassin massacre
Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 120 fighters from the Irgun Zevai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Israel Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Arab village of roughly 600 people...
and the death of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and fighter who in late 1933 founded the secret militant group known as the Organization for Holy Struggle, , which he and Hasan Salama commanded as the Army of the Holy War during the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and during the 1948...
. Throughout battle, they had generally been forced to withdraw and to abandon the people of the villages. Dominique Lapierre
Dominique Lapierre
Dominique Lapierre is a French author.-Life:Dominique Lapierre was born in Châtelaillon-Plage, Charente-Maritime, France. At the age of thirteen, he traveled to America with his father who was a diplomat...
and Larry Collins
Larry Collins (writer)
Larry Collins, born John Lawrence Collins Jr., , was an American writer.-Life:...
report that Joshua Palmon, head of a unit of 6 men, failed to seize invaluable pieces of artillery, and they depict the events as a débâcle for which Fawzi Al-Qawuqji
Fawzi Al-Qawuqji
Fawzi al-Qawuqji was the field commander of the Arab Liberation Army during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War in Palestine, and a rival of the principal Palestinian Arab leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.-Biography:...
offered extravagant excuses, declaring in particular that the Jewish forces has 120 tanks, six squadrons of fighter and bomber aircraft and that they were supported by a regiment of gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
Russian volunteers.
When the battle finished, Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
forces continued 'cleaning' operations until 19 April, destroying several villages and forcing those who inhabited them to flee. Some villages were also evacuated under the instruction of Arab authorities.
In May, Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
engaged in several operations in the region, razing a number of villages and killing some of their inhabitants, as did some detachments from the Golani and Alexandroni brigades.
Deir Yassin massacre
Deir YassinDeir Yassin
Deir Yassin was a Palestinian Arab village of around 600 people near Jerusalem. It had declared its neutrality during the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine between Arabs and Jews...
is a village located 5 kilometres west of Jerusalem. On 9 April 1948, independently of operation Nachshon, around 120 Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
and Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
men attacked the village. They massacred between 100 and 120 inhabitants of the village, mostly civilians. The Haganah had approved the attack and assisted in it, but was not involved in the massacre.
The massacre led to indignation from the international community, the more so since the press of the time reported that the death toll was 254. Ben-Gurion roundly condemned it, as did the principal Jewish authorities: the Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
, the Great Rabbinate and the Jewish Agency for Israel
Jewish Agency for Israel
The Jewish Agency for Israel , also known as the Sochnut or JAFI, served as the organization in charge of immigration and absorption of Jews from the Diaspora into the state of Israel.-History:...
, who sent a letter of condemnation, apology and condolence to King Abdullah I of Jordan
Abdullah I of Jordan
Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, King of Jordan [‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Husayn] عبد الله الأول بن الحسين born in Mecca, Second Saudi State, was the second of three sons of Sherif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca and his first wife Abdiyya bint Abdullah...
.
According to Morris
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
, "the most important immediate effect of the atrocity and the media campaign that followed it was how one started to report the fear felt in Palestinian towns and villages, and, later, the panicked fleeing from them." Another important repercussion was within the Arab population of neighbouring Arab states, which, once again, increased its pressure on the representatives of these states to intervene and come to the aid of the Palestinian Arabs.
Hadassah medical convoy massacre
On 13 April, partly in revenge for the Deir Yassin massacre, a medical convoy that was driving towards Jerusalem's Hadassah HospitalHadassah medical convoy massacre
The Hadassah medical convoy massacre took place on April 13, 1948, when a convoy, escorted by Haganah militia, bringing medical and fortification supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed by Arab forces....
on Mount Scopus was attacked by Arabs, killing 80 Jewish doctors and patients. Thirteen British soldiers were present, but they stood by, only putting in a perfunctory attempt at intervention in the last moments of the massacre.
Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Churchill was present at the scene, and later testified that he had attempted to assist the Hadassah convoy by radioing for support, only for the request to be turned down.
The Battle of Ramat Yohanan and the defection of the Druze
Following the 'fiasco' of Mishmar HaEmek, Fawzi Al-Qawuqji ordered the DruzeDruze
The Druze are an esoteric, monotheistic religious community, found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, which emerged during the 11th century from Ismailism. The Druze have an eclectic set of beliefs that incorporate several elements from Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism...
regiment of the Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
into action, to carry out diversion operations. Druze soldiers took position in several Arab villages 12 kilometres to the east of Haifa, whence they occasionally attacked traffic and Jewish settlements, including Ramat Yohanan
Ramat Yohanan
Ramat Yohanan is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located near Kiryat Ata, it falls under the jurisdiction of Zevulun Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 751....
.
The Kibbutznikim and the Haganah soldiers that supported them forced back their attacks with ease, and razed the villages from which they launched their attacks in retaliation. Having run out of ammunition, the Druze withdrew to their base in Shefa-'Amr
Shefa-'Amr
Shefa-'Amr, also Shfar'am is a predominantly Arab city in the North District of Israel. According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , at the end of 2009 the city had a population of 35,300.-Etymology:...
, with one hundred casualties.
The Druze had already made contact on several occasions with Yishuv agents, and, following their defeat at Ramat Yohanan, the Druze officers, without the knowledge of their officer, offered to defect and to join the ranks of Haganah. This proposition was discussed with Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin on 21 March 1917, died 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.-Early life and military career:...
, who refused the proposal but suggested that they could help to carry out sabotage operations behind the backs of the Arabs and to influence their comrades into deserting the army. By the start of May, 212 Wahab soldiers deserted, Taking into account the attitude of his men, Wahab met with Jewish liaison officers on 9 May and agreed to cooperate with Haganah. The two parties avoided clashes, and Wahab created a neutral enclave in the centre of Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
. Wahab's army did not respond to calls for it to help fight Haganah's occupation of Acre
Acre, Israel
Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....
, and avoided being present whilst Haganah occupied the police fortress of Shefa-'Amr during its evacuation by the British.
The position that the Druze took influenced their fate after the war. Given the good relationship between the Druze and Yishuv from 1930 onwards despite their collaboration with the Arab Higher Council and the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
, Ben-Gurion insisted that the Druze, as well as the Circassians and the Maronites
Maronites
Maronites , is an ethnoreligious group in the Middle East that have been historically tied with Lebanon. They derive their name from the Syriac saint Mar Maron whose followers moved to Mount Lebanon from northern Syria establishing the Maronite Church....
benefit from a different position to that of the other Arabs.
The siege of mixed localities
In the context of Plan Dalet, mixed urban centres, or those on the borders of the Jewish state, were attacked and besieged by Jewish forces. Tiberias was attacked on 10 April and fell six days later; HaifaHaifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
fell on 23 April, after only one day of combat (Operation Bi'ur Hametz), and Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...
was attacked on 27 April but fell only after the British abandoned it (Operation Hametz
Operation Hametz
Operation Hametz was a Jewish operation towards the end of the British Mandate of Palestine. It was launched at the end of April 1948 with the objective of capturing villages inland from Jaffa and establishing a blockade around the town.-Background:...
). Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
and Beisan fell on 11 May and 13 May respectively, within the framework of Operation Yitfah, and Acre
Acre, Israel
Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....
fell on 17 May, within the framework of Operation Ben Ami.
The Arab inhabitants of these towns fled or were expelled en masse. In these 6 cities, only 13,000 of the total of 177,000 Arab inhabitants remained by the end of May. This phenomenon ricocheted also in the suburbs and the majority of the zone's Arab villages.
Operation Yiftah (20 April – 24 May)
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, between the Lake Tiberias
Sea of Galilee
The Sea of Galilee, also Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias , is the largest freshwater lake in Israel, and it is approximately in circumference, about long, and wide. The lake has a total area of , and a maximum depth of approximately 43 m...
and Metula
Metula
Metula is a town in the Northern District of Israel. Metula is located between the sites of the Biblical cities of Dan, Abel Bet Maacah, and Ijon, bordering Lebanon.-Early history:...
, was the Jewish-controlled area that was the most distant and isolated from the area most densely populated by Jewish people, the coastal plain. The presence of the Lebanese border to the north, the Syrian border to east and the Arab presence in the rest of Galilee made it a probable target for intervention of the Arab armies. Within the framework of the Dalet plan, Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin on 21 March 1917, died 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.-Early life and military career:...
entrusted Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon was an Israeli politician, a commander of the Palmach, and a general in the IDF. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda party and the Israeli Labor party, and acting Prime Minister of Israel, and was a member of the Knesset and government minister from the 10th through the...
, commander of the Palmach
Palmach
The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...
, with the responsibility of managing Operation Yiftah, whose objectives were to control all the aforementioned area and consolidate it ahead of the Arab attack that was planned for 15 May.
Allon was in charge the 1st and 3rd Palmach battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
s, which had to face the populace of Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
and several dozen Arab villages. The situation was made more problematic by the presence of the British, although they began their evacuation of the area. According to his analysis, it was essential that they empty the zone of any Arab presence to completely protect themselves; the exodus would also encumber the roads that the Arab forces would have to penetrate.
On 20 April, Allon launched a campaign that mixed propaganda, attacks, seizing control of strongholds that the British had abandoned, and destroying conquered Arab villages. On 1 May, a counter-offensive was launched by Arab militiamen against Jewish settlements but was ultimately unsuccessful. On 11 May, Safed
Safed
Safed , is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and of Israel. Due to its high elevation, Safed experiences warm summers and cold, often snowy, winters...
fell, and the operation finished on 24 May after the villages of the valley of Hula were burnt down. Syrian forces' planned offensive in the area failed and, by the end of June, the zone covering everywhere from Tiberias to Metula, incorporating Safed, was emptied of all its Arab population.
Meeting of Golda Meir and King Abdullah I of Jordan (10 May)
On 10 May, Golda MeirGolda Meir
Golda Meir ; May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978) was a teacher, kibbutznik and politician who became the fourth Prime Minister of the State of Israel....
and Ezra Danin secretly went to Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, to the palace of King Abdullah to discuss the situation with him. The situation that Abdullah found himself in was difficult. On one hand, his personal ambitions, the promises made by the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
in November 1947 and the British approval of these promises pushed him to consider annexing the Arab part of Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
without intervening against the future state of Israel. On the other hand, the pressure exerted by his people in reaction to the massacre of Deir Yassin, combined with their feelings with regard to the Palestinian exodus and his agreements with other members of the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
pushed him to be more strongly involved in the war against Israel. He also found himself in a position of power, having the benefit of military support from not only the Arab League, but the British. In his diary, Ben-Gurion wrote about Golda Meir's reaction to the meeting:
Historical analyses of the motivations and conclusions of this meeting differ. According to Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins – as well as Israeli historiographers
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
– the intention behind the Yishuv's negotiation was to obtain a peace treaty and avoid an attack by Arab forces. At that time, the balance of power was not favourable for them, but Meir did not manage to convince the King.
Avi Shlaim spoke of a 'tacit' agreement to prevent the division of Palestine with the Palestinians, arguing the idea that there was a collusion between the Hashemite Kingdom and Yishuv. The historian Yoav Gelber
Yoav Gelber
Yoav Gelber is a professor of history at the University of Haifa, and was formerly a visiting professor at The University of Texas at Austin....
, however, rejected this idea and devoted an entire work to dismounting it.
Pierre Razoux indicated that 'the majority of experts consider it probable' that Ben-Gurion and King Abdullah had an understanding over dividing Palestine, and that only the pressure from the Arab states on Abdullah constrained him from following up on his promise. According to Razoux, this idea explains the attitude of the British, who, following this plan, would thereby fulfill the promises made by Arthur Balfour
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
to the Yishuv and the Hashemite empire at the same time. He states that the presence of Arab Legion troops, before 15 May, near strategic positions held by the British is in this way easy to understand...
Ilan Pappé stressed that neither Abdullah's ministers, nor the Arab world itself, seemed to be privy to the discussions held between him and the Yishuv, even if his ambitions on Palestine were widely known. He also stated that Sir Alec Kirkbride
Alec Kirkbride
- Biography :He began his military career as an officer in the army of General Allenby from 1916 to 1921. In 1920, after the Battle of Maysalun and the fall of Faisal's government of Syria left Transjordan with no central authority, he was dispatched by the British government to Transjordan to help...
and Glubb Pasha
John Bagot Glubb
Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC better known as Glubb Pasha , was a British soldier, scholar and author, best known for leading and training Transjordan's Arab Legion 1939-1956 as its commanding general...
thought at the time that, at the very least, Azzam Pasha
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam was an Egyptian diplomat, with family origins in Egypt. He served as the first secretary-general of the Arab League between 1945 and 1952.Azzam also had a long career as an ambassador and parliamentarian...
, the Secretary of the Arab League, must have known about Abdullah's double game.
It is certain, on the other hand, that Golda Meir and King Abdullah did not come to an agreement on the status of Jerusalem. On 13 May, the Arab Legion took Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion
Kfar Etzion is a religious Israeli settlement and kibbutz located in the Judean Hills between Jerusalem and Hebron in the southern West Bank. It has a population of 400 and falls under the jurisdiction of Gush Etzion Regional Council...
, strategically located halfway along the road between Hebron and Jerusalem. On 17 May, Abdullah ordered Glubb Pasha
John Bagot Glubb
Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC better known as Glubb Pasha , was a British soldier, scholar and author, best known for leading and training Transjordan's Arab Legion 1939-1956 as its commanding general...
, commander of the Arab Legion, to launch an attack against the Holy City.
Kfar Etzion massacre
After 26 March, the last date on which a supply convoy successfully reached it, despite heavy losses of life, the defenders were completely isolated.
On 12 May, Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
units started to attack the settlements. The motivations advanced include their desire to protect one of their last supply convoys before the embargo took effect, which had to travel down the road by Kfar Etzion. Another theory is that the block of settlements obstructed the deployment of the Legion in the area around Hebron, whose attack was one of Abdullah's principal objectives. External defences fell quickly, and, on 13 May, the first kibbutz was captured, and those who were taken prisoner were massacred; only four survived. Of the 131 defenders, 127, including 21 women, were killed, or massacred after they surrendered. The other three establishments surrendered, and the kibbutzim were first plundered, then razed to the ground.
The events that took place at Kfar Etzion made apparent the limitations of the policy prohibiting evacuation. Although it was effective during civil war, when facing militias, isolated Jewish settlements could not resist the fire power of a regular army, and an evacuation could have made it possible to avoid the captivity or death of those who defended the settlements.
According to Yoav Gelber, the fall and massacre of Kfar Etzion influenced Ben-Gurion's decision to engage the Arab Legion on its way to Jerusalem, although the Haganah General Staff were divided about whether the Legion should be challenged inside Jerusalem itself as such a move could harm the Jews in the city. Ben Gurion left the final decision to Shaltiel. The battle for Jerusalem was thus set in motion.
Operation Kilshon ("Pitchfork") (13–18 May)
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...
intended to capture the Old City during the final days of the Mandate. Its attacks on the seam between East and West Jerusalem from 13–18 May (known as Operation Kilshon) were planned as the initial phase of this conquest.
In Jerusalem, the British held several strategically located security zones named "Bevingrads", at its centre. The city's radio station, telephone exchange and government hospital were located there, along with a number of barracks and the Notre Dame hostel, which dominated the city. One of the main objectives of Operation Kilshon was to take control of these zones of strategic importance whilst the British withdrew. On 13 May the Haganah extended its control of the Old City's Jewish Quarter and on 14th (having obtained the precise schedule of the evacuation with British complicity) took control of the Bevingrads, including the central post office and the Russian Church compound at 04:00. They surprised the Arab troops, who offered no resistance.
A secondary objective of Operation Kilshon was to simultaneously create a continuous frontline between the various isolated Jewish localities. For this aim, Brigadier General David Shaltiel, Haganah's former envoy to Europe, was deployed along with a troop of 400 Haganah soldiers and 600 militia soldiers. Emil Ghuri, the new leader of the Army of the Holy War, also envisaged taking these districts and mobilised 600 soldiers for the mission, but prepared no specific operation.
The secondary aim was also successful. In the North of the city, Jewish forces seized Arab-populated Sheikh Jarrah, made a connection with Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
, and took the villages surrounding the American settlement. In the South, they ensured the connection of the German and Greek settlements with Talpiot and Ramat Rahel, after having taken the Allenby barracks. A Palmach unit even re-established contact with the Jewish district in the Old City via the Zion Gate.
The irregular Arabic forces were rendered impotent and yielded to panic, calling the situation hopeless and announcing the imminent fall of the city.
Operation Ben'Ami (13–22 May)
Within the framework of Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet
Plan Dalet, or Plan D, was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in Palestine in autumn 1947 to spring 1948. Its purpose is much debated...
, Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin
Yigael Yadin on 21 March 1917, died 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, politician, and the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.-Early life and military career:...
intended to make a breakthrough in the west of Galilee
Galilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, wherein a number of isolated Jewish settlements were situated. This zone, which covers the land from Acre
Acre, Israel
Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....
all the way to the Lebanese
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
border
Border
Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states and other subnational entities. Some borders—such as a state's internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and...
, was allocated to the Arabs by the Partition plan, but was on the road through which Lebanese forces intended to enter into Palestine.
The command of this operation was entrusted to Moshe Carmel, head of the Carmeli brigade. It consisted of two phases: the first began on the evening of 13 May, when a column of Haganah's armoured vehicles and lorries advanced along the coast with no resistance. The forces of the Arab Liberation Army fled without entering battle, and the first phase of the operation finished when Acre was taken on 18 May. In the second phase, from 19 May to 21 May, troops went as far as the Yehi'am kibbutz by the Lebanese border, connecting it and conquering and destroying a number of Arab villages on the way.
Main wave of the Palestinian Arab Exodus
The causes of and responsibility for this exodus are highly controversial topics amongst commentators on the conflict and even historians who specialise in this era. Amongst the various possible causes, some attribute the exodus mainly to Arab authorities' instructions to escape, whereas others feel that a policy of expulsion had been organised by the Yishuv
Yishuv
The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel...
authorities and implemented by Haganah. Others yet reject these two assumptions and see the exodus as the cumulative effect of all the civil war's consequences.
Preparations made by the Arab League
During the last meeting of the Arab League in February 1948, the Arab leaders expressed their convictions in the capacity of the Arab Liberation ArmyArab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
to help the Palestinians and to force the international community to give up on the UN-backed partition plan. The following summit took place in Cairo on 10 April, with the situation having clearly developed with the death of Al-Hussayni and the debacle at Mishmar Ha'emek.
Once again, Ismail Safwat called for the immediate deployment of the Arab state armies at the borders of Palestine, and for the need to go beyond the established policy of participating in little more than small-scale raids towards taking part in large-scale operations. For the first time, the Arab leaders discussed the possibility of intervening in Palestine.
Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
and Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
declared themselves ready to intervene immediately, but King Abdullah refused to let the Arab Legion
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th century.-Creation:...
forces intervene immediately in favour of the Palestinians, a move which irritated the Secretary-General
Secretary-General
-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...
of the League, who declared that Abdallah only cedes to the British diktat.
Nonetheless, Abdullah declared himself ready to send the Legion to assist the Palestinian cause after 15 May. In response, Syria insisted that the Egyptian army also take part, and, in spite of the opposition of Egypt's prime minister, King Farkouk responded favourably to the Syrian request, but due to his aim of curbing the Jordanians'
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
hegemonic goals rather than his desire to help the Palestinians.
Later on, following the visit of several Palestinian dignitaries in Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, and despite the opposition of Syria and the Mufti, Hadj Amin Al-Hussayni, Azzam Pasha accepted Abdullah's proposition and sent Ismail Safwat to Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
to organise a coordination between the Arab Liberation Army
Arab Liberation Army
The Arab Liberation Army , also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji...
and Jordan's Arab Legion. It was decided that command over the operations would be reserved for King Abdullah, and that the Iraqis would deploy a brigade in Transjordan to prepare for intervention on 15 May.
On 26 April, the 'intention to occupy Palestine' was officially announced at the Transjordanian parliament and the Jewish people were 'invited to place themselves beneath King Abdullah's jurisdiction.' The intention to spare their lives was also promised. Yishuv perceived this declaration as being one of war and encourages the Western world to pressure the King, through diplomatic means, to prevent his intervention.
On 30 April, Jordanians, Egyptians and Iraqis disputed the command of Abdullah. Abdullah received the honorary title of Commander-in-Chief
Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
, whilst the Iraqi general, Aldine Nur Mahmud, was named Chief of Staff. Despite this show of unity, it was agreed that each army would act independent of each other in the theatre of operations.
On 4 May, the Iraqi task force arrived at Mafraq
Mafraq
Mafraq is the capital city of Mafraq Governorate, Jordan, located 80 Km to the north from the Jordanian capital Amman in crossroad to Syria to the north and Iraq to the east. It has 58,954 inhabitants...
. It was composed of a regiment of armoured tanks, a regiment of mechanised infantry, and twenty-four artillery weapons, and included 1500 men. The Egyptians formed two brigades, deploying around 700 men into the Sinai. The Syrians could not put together a better force, whereas the Lebanese announced that they could not take part in military operations on 10 May.
It was only two days before, on 8 May, that the British Foreign Office was certain of the Arab invasion. Whereas British analysts considered that all Arab armies, except the Arab Legion, were not prepared for the engagements to come, the Egyptian officers claimed that their advance would be 'a parade with the least risk,' and that their army 'would be in Tel-Aviv after just two weeks.'
The state of preparation of the army was such that they did not even have maps of Palestine. At the time, the final plans of invasion had not even been established yet. British leaders tried in vain to make the Arab leaders reconsider their decision, and Ismail Safwat resigned in indifference, but the Arab states seemed resolute. On 15 May 1948, the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
announced officially that it would intervene in Palestine to guarantee the security and right to self-determination of the inhabitants of Palestine in an independent state. On that day, the Azzam Pasha is often claimed to have declared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades", but this has been disproved
Azzam Pasha quotation
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, known as Azzam Pasha, was the Secretary-General of the Arab League from 1945 to 1952. He is often quoted as making a particular statement in 1948...
.
Results and aftermath
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
, the result of these five and a half months of fighting was a "decisive Jewish victory". On one side, the "Palestinian Arab military power was crushed" and most of the population was fleeing or had been driven out. On the other side, the "Haganah transformed from a militia into an army" and succeeded "in consolidating its hold on a continuous strip of territory embracing the Coastal Plain, the Jezreel Valley, and the Jordan Valley". The Yishuv proved it had the capability to defend itself, persuading the United States and the remainder of the world to support it and the "victory over the Palestinian Arabs gave the Haganah the experience and self-confidence [...] to confront [...] the invading armies of the Arab states."
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the independence of the state of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and the 1948 Palestine war
1948 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war refers to the events in the British Mandate of Palestine between the United Nations vote on the partition plan on November 30, 1947, to the end of the first Arab-Israeli war on July 20, 1949.The war is divided into two phases:...
entered its second phase with the intervention of the Arab state armies and the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
1948 Arab-Israeli War
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, known to Israelis as the War of Independence or War of Liberation The war commenced after the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of an independent Israel at midnight on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded...
.
See also
- Partition of the Ottoman Empire
- British Mandate for Palestine
- List of modern conflicts in the Middle East