Chapter 8. Operations Yoav and Hiram
Yoav: Securing the Negev
"For political reasons, the Israeli plan called for the Egyptians to fire the first shots; Israel must not be branded the aggressor. As Ben-Gurion told the Cabinet: “A giant effort must be made [to show?] that the initiative and the responsibility come from the Arab side or at least that the whole question of the initiative and responsibility will be blurred.”12"
"Israel dragged its feet for two days. On 21 October it informed the United Nations of its readiness to comply. On 22 October Acting Mediator Ralph Bunche ordered the two sides to cease fire at 12:00 GMT that day. Israel’s interior minister, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, concluded: “I have a feeling, that each time we succeed—someone stops us and prevents us from exploiting the situation to the end, and we do what that ‘someone’ wants. On the other hand—when the Arabs are winning—no one ever stops them.”36"
"Allon had taken note of the Egyptians’ impressive stamina in defense. He explained: “It emerged that the Egyptian command had instilled into their troops the belief that the Jews do not take prisoners, but rather kill the prisoners. Thus every position saw itself compelled to fight to the death. . . . Though we tried to circulate handbills and information [to the contrary] and to create bad blood between officers and men and between [Arab] locals and the [Egyptian] army, we failed to persuade them that we take prisoners and are hospitable [to POWs].”37 (Ben-Gurion, incidentally, thought simply that “the Egyptians had fought with great courage”—on Hill 113, at Huleikat, and especially at gIraq Suweidan.)38"
"Ben-Gurion also feared Christendom’s ire were Israel to assault Bethlehem.48"
Egyptian retreat and refugees flee
"Al-Muwawi was particularly concerned about his northernmost brigade, the Second, dug in around Majdal and Isdud. After the fall of Beit Hanun, Egyptian engineers rapidly laid down wire matting on the dunes along the Mediterranean shore, creating a makeshift bypass route from Gaza to Majdal. But it was built for retreat, not advance. In the fortnight after 22 October, al-Muwawi, in nightly convoys, gradually pulled back his northerly units, starting with Isdud, which was evacuated on 26–27 October. Most of the Palestinian population fled southward along with the Egyptians. IAF reconnaissance reported: “A giant stream of refugees, with cattle, sheep, mules, and carts is seen streaming along the whole shoreline between Isdud and Gaza.”57 At the same time, to the east, the Legion, fearing the spread of panic, was doing its best to bar the way to refugees fleeing eastward from Beit Jibrin–Tarqumiya toward Hebron.58
In most places, the IDF did not have to resort to expulsion orders. The inhabitants, with or without Egyptian advice, fled as the Israelis approached or let loose with mortars and machine guns. Most villages were found abandoned or almost completely empty when the IDF entered. The few remaining inhabitants—those left behind, because of handicap, carelessness, or age—were usually expelled. In some places, inhabitants initially removed themselves only a few hundred yards to wait and see what the IDF intended and only later moved on or were pushed toward the Gaza Strip. Elsewhere, with fleeing inhabitants infecting neighboring villages with panic, in a domino effect, the refugees moved directly toward the Gaza Strip. Without doubt, Allon wanted empty villages and towns behind the shifting front line and probably let his subordinates understand this (though explicit written expulsion orders from Southern Front to its subordinate units are rare)."
"The next day, the Eighty-ninth Battalion captured al-Qubeiba and the dominant position atop Tel Lachish (site of the Israelite town besieged and conquered by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, in 701 BCE). The Egyptians had fled both locations without a fight. The Egyptian command asked the Fourth Brigade, trapped in the pocket and complaining of lack of “fuel and food and ammunition, and [with] a multiplicity of wounded,” whether it could break out through al-Qubeiba.65 It couldn’t.
Dawayima Massacre
On 29 October the Eighty-ninth Battalion assaulted neighboring Dawayima, a village of four thousand. Three days before, Southern Front had warned all units “not to harm the population” (and to desist from looting and to safeguard “holy sites”).66 But things turned out differently at Dawayima. A reduced company, mounted on seven half-tracks, advanced on the village from three directions, all guns blazing. The attackers believed that the villagers had participated in the conquest of the gEtzion Bloc, “the blood of whose slaughtered soldiers calls for revenge.”67 The Israelis encountered only light resistance, and as the half-tracks approached, “the plain [eastward] was covered with thousands of fleeing Arabs.” The half-tracks pursued the villagers with their machine guns.68 Subsequently, the troops rounded up dozens of villagers and executed them in one or two batches. A Mapam activist later wrote a complaint, quoting an officer who had reached the village a day or so later: “The first [wave] of conquerors killed about 80 to 100 [male] Arabs, women and children. . . . One commander ordered a sapper to put two old women in a certain house . . . and blow it up. The sapper refused. . . . The commander then ordered his men to push in the old women and the evil deed was done. One soldier boasted that he had raped a woman and then shot her.”69
Pressure by Mapam ministers resulted in a number of investigations. One investigator, Isser Beheri, head of the IDF Intelligence Service, concluded in November that about eighty villagers had been killed during the battle and another “22” afterward. Arab reports, which reached UN observers, exaggerated, speaking of “500” or even “1,000” victims. United Nations investigators were unable to find evidence of a massacre (though they tended to believe the survivors who reached Hebron who spoke of atrocities).70"
Allon meets Taha
"Under a flag of truce, Taha met Allon on 11 November in Kibbutz Gat, in Israeli-held territory. The conversation took place in English, at Taha’s insistence, and not in Arabic, as Allon, who knew Arabic well, had proposed. It went as follows:
Allon: Colonel, may I express my admiration for your brave soldiers’ fighting abilities. The conquest of the gIraq Suweidan fort and half the ‘Pocket’ took a great effort, though not many casualties.
Taha: Many thanks, sir. I must say that your soldiers, who excelled in bravery, put us in quite a difficult situation.
Allon: Is it not tragic that both sides, who in fact have no reason to quarrel, are killing each other mercilessly?
Taha: Yes, it is tragic; but that is the way of the world. It is fate, sir, and one cannot evade it.
Allon: I hope you have noted that the war was forced upon us, as it is being fought on our land and not in Egypt. I believe the battle has already been decided and it is best to speed up the end of hostilities.
Taha: It is true. But I am an officer . . . and I must carry out orders.
Allon: It is best that you take note that while most of your army is pinned down in a hopeless war in Palestine, in your country the British army, which we have just gotten rid of, rules. Don’t you think that you have fallen prey to a foreign imperialist plot . . . ?
Taha: You did well to throw out the British. It won’t be long before we expel them from Egypt.
Allon: But how will you expel them if all your army is stuck here, after a big defeat and on the eve of an even bigger defeat? Isn’t it better for you to return to Egypt and take care of your own business, instead of being entangled in an adventure in a foreign land?
Taha responded that he would do what he was ordered. Allon pointed out that the pocket’s position was hopeless and offered Taha “surrender with honor . . . with the possibility of an immediate return home.” But Taha refused to lay down his arms. Indeed, he immediately cabled his superiors: “We have made contact with the Jews and it is now clear . . . that they insist on unconditional surrender. They will not allow us to withdraw until all the Egyptian army withdraws from Palestine. If you don’t solve the problem in the [next] 24 hours, I am sorry to say, I will no longer control the situation.” Taking leave of Allon, Taha said that he hoped that the IDF would respect the cease-fire, as it had not when capturing gIraq Suweidan. Allon responded that he would obey international law but that such law did not protect an army that had invaded another country"
Hiram: Securing the Galilee
"The Lebanese units and villages along the border had earlier been showered from the air with leaflets warning against intervention. If they stayed out, they would not be harmed, the IDF promised.116 The Carmeli Brigade, held in reserve for the first two days, on 30 October pushed up the slopes westward and northward from Yiftah and Manara and took Sheikh gAbd, abandoned by the ALA without a fight. Around midnight 30–31 October, Carmeli crossed the frontier into southern Lebanon and occupied a string of fifteen (mostly Shigite) villages between the Panhandle’s western border and Wadi Duba (Wadi Saluki), from Aalmane and Deir Siriane, along the Litani River, in the north to Qanntara and al-Qussair in the west to Meis al-Jabel and Blida in the south. The Lebanese Army faded away and the villagers welcomed the Israelis, some of them signing surrender instruments, others asking to be annexed by Israel.117 Indeed, “many villages” west of Wadi Duba contacted the IDF and asked to surrender.118 Early on 31 October Israel agreed to a ceasefire, which went into effect at 11:00 AM. 119"
Massacres by Carmeli troops
"During the takeover of the Lebanese border strip, Carmeli troops committed a major atrocity in the village of Hule. On 1 November, after conquest, they rounded up local males and POWs, crowded them into a house, shot them, and then blew up the building. Altogether thirty-four to fiftyeight persons died. The company commander involved was tried, convicted, and sentenced by an Israeli court to a seven-year prison term, which he never actually served.122
Hule was just one of a series of atrocities committed by the Golani, Seventh, and Carmeli Brigades, and auxiliary units, in the course of Hiram and in its immediate aftermath. Altogether, some two hundred civilians and POWs were murdered in about a dozen locations. There is no evidence that the killings were instigated or ordered by Northern Front HQ (indeed, Carmel subsequently condemned them) or that they were part of a policy designed to facilitate a civilian exodus from the conquered areas. Indeed, the haphazardness of the killings (Christians as well as Muslims were murdered; in some sites two or four persons were killed; in others, fifty or eighty) and the fact that in most of the villages, the atrocities were not followed by an expulsion would seem to undermine this conjecture. But, given the number and concentration of the atrocities and the diversity of the units involved, there are grounds for suspecting that the field commanders involved believed that they were carrying out an authorized policy probably designed to precipitate flight."
Expulsion order not carried out
"Hiram apparently precipitated the flight, mostly to Lebanon, of about thirty thousand local inhabitants and refugees resident in the “pocket.”125 But at least as many, both Christians and Muslims, remained (today they and their descendants constitute the core of Israel’s 1.3-million-strong Arab minority). As we have seen, no directive of expulsion was included in the main operational order by Northern Front to its brigades and other units issued before Hiram, and no such order was issued while the Galilee was being conquered. Indeed, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, who later toured the Galilee, spoke with commanders and assessed the demographic denouement of the operation, wrote: “From all the commanders we talked to we heard that during the operations . . . they had had no clear instructions, no clear line, concerning behavior towards the Arabs in the conquered areas— expulsion of the inhabitants or leaving them in place . . . discrimination in favor of Christians or not.”126 And: “The attitude toward the Arab inhabitants of the Galilee and to the refugees [there] . . . was haphazard [mikri] and different from place to place in accordance with this or that commander’s initiative. . . . Here [inhabitants] were expelled, there, left in place; . . . here, [the IDF] discriminated in favor of the Christians, and there [the IDF] behaved toward the Christians and the Muslims in the same way.”127 And although the official, Yagakov Shimoni, had favored expelling the refugees camped out in the Galilee, and perhaps many of the permanent inhabitants as well, this had not been conveyed in time to the IDF and had not been the army’s policy"
"But on the morning of 31 October, rising early, Ben-Gurion drove up to Safad, Northern Front HQ, where he met Carmel. What exactly was said is unknown, but Ben-Gurion jotted down in his diary that he (or Carmel) expected “additional Arabs” to flee the area, above and beyond those who had already fled or been expelled,129 and Carmel promptly—while Ben-Gurion was still with him or hard on the heels of the Old Man’s departure—instructed all his units: “Do all in your power for a quick and immediate cleansing [tihur] of the conquered areas of all the hostile elements in line with the orders that have been issued[.] The inhabitants of the areas conquered should be assisted to leave.”130 Ten days later Carmel reiterated: “[We] should continue to assist the inhabitants who wish to leave the areas we have conquered. This matter is urgent and should be expedited quickly.”131 To this order Carmel had added that “a 5-kilometer-deep strip behind the border line between us and Lebanon must be empty of [Arab] inhabitants.”132
But it is one thing to instruct units before they set out to conquer villages, or while conquering them, to expel the inhabitants; it is quite another to tell them, after they have conquered the villages and moved on, to go back and expel the inhabitants who have already been neutralized. The fact that the UN cease-fire had gone into effect at 11:00 AM on 31 October may also have contributed to the nonexpulsive behavior of most IDF units following their receipt of the expulsion directive, radioed to the units only an hour before.
Besides, the order was couched in very unimperative language. Carmel had pointedly avoided using the word “expel” (legaresh), perhaps hinting at his moral unease.
As a result, Carmel’s units by and large failed to expel the inhabitants who had remained in place after Hiram had washed over them. And, indeed, Carmel later punished neither commanders who had expelled communities nor commanders who had failed to expel."