Chapter 7: The Third Wave: the ten days (9-18 July) and the Second Truce (18 - July - 15 October)

"The IDF operations of 9–18 July, triggered by the Arabs’ unwillingness to prolong the 30-day truce and, in the south, by the Egyptians’ pre-emptive offensive, created a major new wave of refugees, who fled primarily to Jordanian-held eastern Palestine, and to Upper Galilee, Lebanon and the Egyptian-held Gaza Strip.

Just before the start of the ‘Ten Days’, as this round of hostilities was to be called in Israeli historiography, Ben-Gurion instructed the IDF to issue a general order to all units concerning behaviour towards Arab communities. Signed by General Ayalon ‘in the name of the Chief of Staff’, it stated:

Outside the actual time of fighting, it is forbidden to destroy, burn or demolish Arab cities and villages, to expel Arab inhabitants from villages, neighbourhoods and cities, and to uproot inhabitants from their places without special permission or explicit order from the Defence Minister in each specific case. Anyone violating this order will be put on trial. 1

The order was a grudging response to left-wing political pressure, and, at least in the higher echelons of the IDF, may have been understood as such, rather than as a reflection of Ben-Gurion’s or the CGS’s real thinking. However, it reached all large formations and headquarters, and presented at least a formal obstacle to the deliberate precipitation of mass flight and the unauthorised destruction of villages. 2

During the ‘Ten Days’, Ben-Gurion and the IDF were largely left on their own to decide and execute policy towards conquered communities, without interference or instruction by the Cabinet or the ministries. That policy, as shall be seen, was inconsistent, circumstantial and haphazard. The upshot – different results in different places – was determined by a combination of factors, chief of which were the religious and ethnic identity of the conquered populations, specific local strategic and tactical considerations and circumstances, Ben-Gurion’s views on the cases brought, or of interest, to him, the amount and quality of resistance offered in each area, and the character and proclivities of particular IDF commanders. The result was that the Ramle–Lydda and Tel as Safi areas were almost completely emptied of their Arab populations while in Western and Lower Galilee the bulk of the Christian and Druse inhabitants as well as many Muslims stayed put and were allowed to remain in place."

The North

"The operational orders for Mivtza Dekel spoke of ‘attacking . . . Qawuqji’s forces’ – the Arab Liberation Army units in Western Galilee and in and around Nazareth – and ‘completely destroying’ them. No explicit mention was made of how the overrun civilian population was to be treated. 3

But the civilians were already under pressure, by Qawuqji, even before the start of Dekel on 9 July, at least to partially evacuate their homes. Already on 24 June, soldiers garrisoning Ma‘lul and Mujeidil instructed the villagers ‘to evacuate all their women and children [with] all their property’...The beduin were also ordered to send their young men to Ma‘lul to join Qawuqji’s forces – but ‘they refused for fear of their Jewish neighbours’... a day or two before the resumption of the fighting, Qawuqji’s headquarters instructed all the inhabitants of the villages ‘around Nazareth’ to ‘sleep outside the[ir] villages’, starting on the night of 8 July. The villagers of ‘Illut, west of the town, were reported on 7 July to have begun leaving; the departees included the mukhtar and several other notables. 5 That day, ‘all the women and children’ of Mujeidil and Ma‘lul were reported to have been moved to Nazareth, and the same was happening ‘in the rest of the villages in the area’. 6

...Prior to this, the Druse collectively had decided to part company with the Muslims and Christians. Already on 23 June, the Druse notables of Abu Sinan, Julis and Yarka had decided to stay out of the hostilities. 8 Along with the notables in other Druse villages, they were also determined to stay put (as, in less uniform and organised fashion, were many Christian villagers). Muslim villagers, on the other hand, were by and large determined to resist and to evacuate should they fall under Israeli control. Apparently, this was also what the IDF commanders involved wanted. Dov Yirmiya, a company commander in the 21st Battalion, recalled the attack on Kuweikat thus: ‘I don’t know whether the artillery softening up of the village caused casualties but the psychological effect was achieved and the village’s non-combatant inhabitants fled before we began the assault.’ A few of the inhabitants had participated in the Yehiam Convoy battle and massacre of 28 March, and this, a fact known to the Israeli commanders, may have been a factor in unleashing the relatively strong barrage on Kuweikat.

... On 9 July, the IDF appealed to the village to surrender, but the mukhtar, probably fearing a charge of treason by the ALA, refused. That night, the Carmeli Brigade let loose with artillery.

... The village militiamen quickly followed, some of them going to ‘Amqa, whose inhabitants also fled following an IDF artillery barrage on their own village. The handful of Kuweikat villagers – mostly old people – who stayed put when the village fell were apparently expelled to neighbouring Abu Sinan. The Druse of Abu Sinan subsequently refused to give most of them shelter and they moved on into Upper Galilee and Lebanon. 9

... The Druse villagers, according to OC Northern Front Carmel, often helped the Israelis beforehand with intelligence and greeted the conquering columns with song, dance and animal sacrifies. 10 Most of the Muslims fled mainly out of fear of Israeli retaliation for having supported or assisted Qawuqji’s troops.

At Shafa ‘Amr, Israeli–Druse cooperation peaked, with IDF intelligence agents and Druse emissaries repeatedly meeting during the days before the assault and arranging a sham Druse resistance and surrender. "

"Those remaining in Mujeidil were apparently driven out toward Nazareth. 16 Of the villages captured in the second stage of Dekel, only Mujeidil, Ma‘lul, ar Ruweis and Damun were completely emptied of inhabitants and, later, along with Saffuriya, leveled. It is worth noting that four of these villages were completely or overwhelmingly Muslim and that at least Saffuriya and Mujeidil had strongly supported Qawuqji and had a history of anti-Yishuv behaviour (prominently during 1936–1939). Some of them, especially Saffuriya, put up strong resistance to the IDF advance. In all the other villages captured in the second phase of Operation Dekel and where the IDF had encountered no, or no serious, resistance, at least a core of inhabitants stayed put (usually by clan, some clans preferring to depart, some to stay), and these villages exist to this day."

"Most observers at the time believed that the IDF, in Dekel, had roughly drawn a distinction between Muslims on the one hand and Druse and Christians on the other. Yitzhak Avira, an old-time HIS hand and something of an Arabist, wrote about this in critical terms to Danin. Avira noted the ‘cleansing [of the area] of Muslims and a softer attitude towards Christians . . . [and] Druse’. He related that he had visited Shafa ‘Amr and had seen ‘wanted’ Christians and Druse who ‘not only walked about freely, but also had on their faces joy at the misfortune of the Muslims who had been expelled’. Avira warned of the ‘danger’ of assuming that Christians and Druse were ‘kosher’ while Muslims were ‘non-kosher’. He conceded that the Muslims were ‘our serious enemies, especially the Husseini [supporters]’, but added that some Druse and Christians were also dangerous and untrustworthy. 17"

Nazareth

"Overwhelmingly Christian Nazareth from the first was earmarked for special treatment because of its importance to the Christian world."

"The order for the conquest of Nazareth (and several neighbouring villages) – codenamed ‘Mivtza Ya‘ar’ (Operation Forest) – made no mention of how the town’s civilians were to be treated. 21 But on 15 July, the day before Nazareth fell, Ben-Gurion ordered the army to prepare a special administrative task force to take over and run the town smoothly and to issue warnings against the desecration of ‘monasteries and churches’ (mosques were not mentioned) and against looting. Soldiers caught looting should be fired upon, ‘with machine-guns, mercilessly’, Ben-Gurion instructed.22 The order was transmitted down the ranks and was strictly obeyed. Carmel instructed the Carmeli, Golani and 7th brigades not to loot and not to damage churches in the ‘cradle of Christianity, holy to many millions’. 23 Golani’s OC, Nahum Golan (Spiegel), explained: ‘Because of its importance to the Christian world – the behaviour of the occupation forces in the town could serve as a factor in determining the prestige of the young state abroad.’ 24 Even the property of those who had fled Nazareth was treated more diffidently than elsewhere. 25 On 16 July, units of the Golani and 7th brigades occupied the town, suffering one soldier wounded (the Arabs had 16 dead). 26 As the troops entered, the ALA units fled – and ‘immediately, white flags appeared on most of Nazareth’s buildings . . . A real wave of joy engulfed the city, joy mixed with dread regarding what was about to happen.’ The inhabitants, according to IDF intelligence, were happy at the departure of the ‘tyranny and humiliation . . . beating, cursing, shooting and detentions’ they had suffered at the hands of the Palestinian irregulars, headed by Tawfiq Ibrahim (‘Abu Ibrahim’) and, subsequently (and to a lesser degree), at the hands of the ALA’s Iraqi soldiery. But they were filled with dread lest ‘the reports that they had received about the Jews’ behaviour in [other] conquered areas’ be confirmed, ‘especially [those regarding] . . . rape . . . in Acre and Ramle’. But the inhabitants were quickly reassured by the Israelis’ benign behaviour. The locals handed over their arms and ‘a general atmosphere of cooperation prevailed among all classes’. The few incidents of robbery did not mar the proceedings. By the second day, ‘the markets and shops were open and the streets filled with people. It was evident that the inhabitants, who had suffered from a severe lack of food, were hoping to see us as saviours in this respect.’27

On the evening of 16 July the remaining notables and Haim Laskov, OC Operation Dekel, signed an instrument of surrender. Combatants were to surrender and arms were to be handed over. The mayor was to remain in place and ‘the Government of Israel . . . recognised the equal civil rights of all the inhabitants of Nazareth as of all the citizens of Israel without attention to religion, race or language’. 28

Yet the following day, 17 July, the army issued an expulsion order. According to Ben-Gurion, it was Carmel, the front commander, who had given the order ‘to uproot all the inhabitants of Nazareth; 29 according to Colonel Ben Dunkelman, the Canadian commander of 7th Brigade, the order had come from Laskov, his immediate superior.30 Hours earlier, Laskov had appointed Dunkelman military governor of Nazareth. But Dunkelman was ‘shocked and horrified’ and refused to carry out the order,31 forcing Laskov to obtain higher sanction. Laskov asked IDF General Staff for a ruling: ‘Tell me immediately, urgently, whether to expel [leharhik] the inhabitants from the city of Nazareth. In my view all, save for clerics, should be expelled.’32 The matter was referred to Ben-Gurion, who vetoed the proposal. ‘According to the order of the defence minister, the inhabitants of Nazareth should not be expelled’, the Golani Brigade was told that evening.33 Meanwhile, Laskov appointed another officer as military governor, in Dunkelman’s stead.

The townspeople were unaware of these goings on and quickly settled down to life under the Israelis. Indeed, the situation was so good that villagers from the surrounding area poured in. 34 Shimoni, of the Foreign Ministry, urged the military governor to ‘demand that the church leaders and the Muslims’ send a cable to the Pope and other ‘appropriate addresses’ affirming the Jews’ ‘good behaviour toward the holy places’.35 To prevent depredations against the Arab citizenry, on 22 July the IDF declared the town off limits ‘to all soldiers’ save those with special permits. 36

In the days following its conquest, Nazareth contained about 15,000 inhabitants and 20,000 refugees. An Arab informant reported that all told about ‘30,000’ people had fled the town and the surrounding villages, most of them going to Lebanon. In Bint Jbail, in southern Lebanon, the joke was that the locals were renting out to the refugees shady spots under fig trees for P£25. The refugees’ situation, in terms of food, was reportedly ‘very bad’. Lebanon had tried to bar entry to refugees unless they had with them at least P£100. During the following weeks, refugees in large numbers were infiltrating through IDF lines back to Nazareth, 37 while villagers who had initially fled to Nazareth – from Shafa ‘Amr, Kafr Kanna, Dabburiyya, etc. – were being allowed to return to their villages.

Why most of Nazareth’s inhabitants, despite the battle around them, had stayed put was explained – in part inadvertently – by Shitrit after he visited the town. No doubt, Qawuqji’s prevention of flight from the city just before and on 15 July played a part. Moreover, the inhabitants’ maltreatment by the ALA and the fact that the town’s mayor, Yusuf Bek al Fahum, and other municipal councilors, along with much of the municipal bureaucracy and the 170 policemen, had stayed, discounting fears of expected Jewish atrocities and retribution, had also contributed.
The occupying troops had generally behaved well. A Minority Affairs Ministry official, Elisha Sulz, rather than a military man, had quickly (on 18 July) been appointed military governor, and had been advised by Chizik, former military governor of Jaffa, on how to behave.

During his visit, Shitrit had also instructed Sulz on behaviour towards the population: to get the search for weapons over quickly, and to open the shops and renew normal life as soon as possible. The minister asked that a judge be appointed, the municipality and post office be reactivated and measures be taken against the spread of infection and epidemics. And Shitrit told the Cabinet that ‘the army must be given strict instructions to [continue to] behave well and fairly towards the inhabitants of the town because of the great political importance of the city in the eyes of the world’.

The thousands who had nonetheless fled the town immediately after conquest had done so, according to Shitrit, because they had believed ‘spurious and counterfeit Arab propaganda . . . about atrocities by Jews, who cut off hands with axes, break legs and rape women, etc.’. Some 200 of the Fahum clan had fled to Lebanon, he said, ‘mainly out of fear of rape of women’. Sulz later reported that most of those who had fled had been Qawuqji collaborators. 38 But during the following weeks, as some refugees, evading Arab and Israeli roadblocks, were making their way back to Nazareth, Muslims were continuing to leave the town – at the rate of 10 families a day, and growing, according to one IDF intelligence informant.39"

Uniformity of governance policy

"The conquest of towns and villages both inside and outside the partition plan Jewish state had raised a general problem of governance: how was Israel to behave toward its Arab citizens, how were they to be cared for, watched over and governed? Until July, the leadership had taken an ad hoc approach, appointing military governors for each conquered town; these had felt out and established their powers while dealing with the day-to-day problems that arose vis- a-vis the population and other state agencies (especially the IDF and Minority Affairs Ministry). But the conquest of three towns outside the partition borders, Nazareth and, a few days earlier, Lydda and Ramle, highlighted and exacerbated the gen- eral questions, which Ben-Gurion had formulated two months before:

There is a need to determine rules regarding a conquered city . . . Who rules it: The [military] commander or an appointed governor . . . What will be his powers . . . vis-a-vis the inhabitants [and] their property? . . . Should Arabs be expelled? . . . What is the rule regarding Arabs who stay? . . . Who looks after those who stay? 40

Uniformity – a policy – had to be established in the treatment of Arab communities and areas incorporated into the state and a central guiding hand had to control and supervise that treatment. On 21 July 1948, the Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property decided on the establishment of a ‘Military Government Department’ in the Defence Ministry and
Ben-Gurion decided to appoint Elimelekh Avner (Zelikovich), a veteran Haganah officer, as its director, with the rank of general. Avner spent the following weeks studying the subject, touring the conquered towns and meeting military governors and officials. In mid-August, he received and accepted his commission. Initially, four military ‘governorates’ came under his jurisdiction: Western Galilee (Acre), which included Haifa; Galilee (Nazareth); Jaffa; and Lydda-Ramle. Others (Majdal and Negev (Beersheba)) were added as the southern coastal plain and the northern Negev were brought under Israeli control in October–November. With the help of attached IDF units, the governors ruled the communities, imposing curfews, handing out residency and travel permits, organising municipal services, dispensing food and health care to the needy, establishing schools and kindergartens, and organising search operations for infiltrating refugees and their expulsion. As part of the Defence Ministry, the Military Government was directly subordinate to the defence minister in matters of policy, but in terms of daily functioning – manpower, equipment, and operations – it operated as a military unit under IDF\GS supervision. Partly for this reason, as well as because of their bifurcated tasks, a lack of clarity characterised the authorities’ treatment of the Arab communities during the following months, with continuous clashes over powers and areas of jurisdiction between the IDF, the Military Government and the Minority Affairs Ministry. 41"

Atrocities

" Dekel operational orders contained no instructions to expel."

"The first to fall was ‘Illut, just west of Nazareth, on 16 July. The available documentation does not paint a clear picture of what exactly happened. The villagers may (or may not) have resisted the conquering force, Golani’s 13th Battalion. Some 15 inhabitants were killed that day and the inhabitants fled, according to one Golani report. Two days later, after the force left, the inhabitants began to return. An IDF patrol ordered the returnees to leave. At the end of July, troops surrounded the village and, during a ‘search and identification’ operation, shot and killed ‘about 10’ inhabitants – ‘while trying to escape’, according to a Golani Brigade report. 42 The report was written in response to a complaint sent to Ben-Gurion about the troops’ behaviour. The unnamed complainant wrote (confusedly) that ‘46 [‘Illut] youngsters’ had been detained ‘and taken to an unknown destination. Some of these people were found dead in the hills on 3.8.1948 by Arab shepherds. That day, 14 of the prisoners were murdered in the olive grove near ‘Illut in the presence of the villagers – women and children.’ 43 But the villagers were not expelled (and ‘Illut today has a population of 5,800 Muslims).

Another atrocity occurred in Kafr Manda, a village on the edge of the area occupied in Dekel that was to change hands repeatedly. The initial occupying force ‘behaved well’, disarming the population. Thereafter, IDF patrols from time to time visited the village. Then, apparently in August, an ALA force moved in and, maltreating the remaining inhabitants, forced them to build fortifications and supply the troops with water and food. The ALA was peeved at the villagers’ surrender to the IDF. One day, an IDF force attacked the village, the ALA fled and the inhabitants took refuge in the mosque. ‘A Jewish officer named Shlomo came to the mosque and pulled out some 20 young men and led them to the spring, where he stood them in a line [and] pulled out two and executed them.’ The Israelis – apparently angered by the villagers’ help to the ALA – then left and the village was again occupied by the ALA, finally falling into Israeli hands in October. 44

But ‘Illut and Kafr Manda were exceptional. Most of the villages fell without battle and without atrocities or expulsions"

The Centre

"For the IDF, Operation Dani was the linchpin of the ‘Ten Days’. The aim was to relieve the pressure on semi-besieged Jerusalem, secure the length of the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road and neutralise the perceived threat to Tel Aviv from the Arab Legion, whose forward units, in Lydda and Ramle, were less than 20 kilometres away.

From the start of the war, militiamen from Ramle and Lydda had attacked Jewish traffic on nearby roads. Jewish retaliatory strikes, such as that by the Haganah, on 10 December 1947, in which 15 empty Arab vehicles, including two buses, were destroyed in a parking lot in Ramle and two guards were killed, 51 and the IZL’s bomb attack, on 18 February 1948, in Ramle’s market, in which seven died and two dozen were injured,52 eroded Arab morale. So did the massacre, apparently by the IZL, of ten Arab workers (one of them a woman) in the groves near ‘Arab al Satariyya (‘Arab al Fadl), near Ramle, in late February 1948. 53 The notables of both Lydda and Ramle, after the initial bouts of violence, generally tried to keep the peace and keep local militants in check, but were only sporadically successful. 54 By early May, there was mass flight from Ramle, which suffered from periodic cut-offs of water and electricity and a shortage of fuel.55 Militiamen on Ramle’s outskirts were reportedly preventing young males from leaving town, though women, children and the old were allowed to go. 56"

Ramle

"Even before the First Truce, IDF\GS and Ben-Gurion had begun to think offensively vis-a-vis the two towns. The Kiryati Brigade, responsible for Tel Aviv, in late May reported that the Arabs had a ‘substantial force concentrated (including armour and apparently also artillery) in the Ramle-Lydda-[Lydda] Airport-Wilhelma-Beit Nabala line’ and the idea that they might ‘break out in the direction of Tel Aviv’ had to be taken into account.58 On 30 May, Ben-Gurion told his generals that the two towns ‘might serve as bases for attack on Tel Aviv’ and other settlements. Their conquest by the IDF would gain new territory for the state, release forces tied down in the defense of Tel Aviv and the highway to Jerusalem, and sever Arab transportation lines. While the Arab Legion in fact had only one, defensively-oriented company (about 120–150 soldiers) in Lydda and Ramle together, and a second-line company at Beit Nabala to the north, IDF intelligence and Operation Dani OC General Yigal Allon believed at the start of the offensive that they faced a far stronger Legion force and one whose deployment was potentially aggressive, posing a threat to Tel Aviv itself. 59

... But during May–June, Ben-Gurion appears to have developed an obsession regarding Lydda and Ramle, partly because they sat astride the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road and, ultimately, threatened Jewish Jerusalem, partly because of their proximity, and threat, to Tel Aviv. Repeatedly he jotted down in his diary that Lydda and Ramle had to be ‘destroyed’: 61 In mid-June, he spoke in Cabinet of the need to remove ‘these two thorns’ in the Yishuv’s side.62"

"From the start, the operations against Lydda and Ramle were designed to induce civilian panic and flight – as a means of precipitating military collapse and possibly also as an end itself. After the initial air attacks on the towns, Operation Dani headquarters at 11:30 hours, 10 July, informed IDF\GS: there was ‘a general and serious [civilian] flight from Ramle. There is great value in continuing the bombing.’ 65 During the afternoon, the headquarters asked General Staff for renewed bombing, and informed one of the brigades: ‘Flight from the town of Ramle of women, the old and children is to be facilitated. The [military age] males are to be detained.’66"

"The bombing and shelling of 10 July were successful. The following day, Yiftah Brigade’s intelligence officer reported: ‘The bombing from the air and artillery [shelling] of Lydda and Ramle caused flight and panic among the civilians [and] a readiness to surrender.’ That day, Operation Dani HQ repeatedly asked for further bombing, ‘including [with] incendiaries’. 67 Civilian morale (and the military will to resist) was fur- ther dented by the raid on late afternoon 11 July of the 89th Battalion (commanded by Lt. Colonel Moshe Dayan) on Lydda and along the Lydda–Ramle road. Two of the battalion’s companies, mounted on an armoured car, jeeps, scout cars and half-tracks, drove through Lydda from east to west spraying machine-gun fire at anything that moved, and then proceeded southwards, shooting up militia outposts along the Lydda–Ramle road, reaching Ramle’s train station on the town’s north- eastern edge, before returning to their starting point at Ben Shemen. The battalion suffered six dead and 21 wounded – but killed and wounded dozens of Arabs (perhaps as many as 200). 68 One of Dayan’s troopers, ‘Gideon’, was some months later to describe what he saw and felt that day:

[My] jeep made the turn and here at the . . . entrance to the house opposite stands an Arab girl, stands and screams with eyes filled with fear and dread. She is all torn and dripping blood – she is certainly wounded. Around her on the ground lie the corpses of her family. Still quivering, death has not yet redeemed them from their pain. Next to her is a bundle of rags – her mother, hand outstretched trying to draw her into the house. And the girl understands nothing . . . Did I fire at her? . . . But why these thoughts, for we are in the midst of battle, in the midst of conquest of the town. The enemy is at every corner. Every one is an enemy. Kill! Destroy! Murder! Otherwise you will be murdered and will not conquer the town. What [feeling] did this lone girl stir within you? Continue to shoot! Move forward! . . . Where does this desire to murder come from? What, because your friend . . . was killed or wounded, you have lost your humanity and you kill and destroy? Yes! . . . I kill every one who belongs to the enemy camp: man, woman, old person, child. And I am not deterred. 69

To judge from this description, the battalion’s death-dispensing dash through Lydda combined elements of a battle and a massacre. Some months later, in November, Natan Alterman, Israel’s most celebrated poet, was to portray the operation in a condemnatory, moralistic poem. 70 Be that as it may, the battalion’s hour-long expedition certainly shook morale in Lydda (and probably in Ramle)."

"Yiftah HQ had apparently initiated contact on 10 July with Ramle’s notables to bring about a surrender. 72 The following day, IDF aircraft dropped leaflets on the two towns calling for surrender: ‘Whoever resists – will die. He who chooses life will surrender.’ The notables of Ramle were instructed to proceed by foot to the village of Barriya holding aloft a white flag; Lydda’s notables were told to go Jimzo. 73 During the night of 11–12 July, a delegation of Ramle notables – Isma’in Nakhas, Haret Haji, Hussam al Khairi, and Imada Khouri – reached Barriya and were ferried to Yiftah Brigade HQ at Kibbutz Na‘an, where the following morning they signed a formal instrument of surrender. 74 The document stated that all arms and ‘all strangers in the town’ would be handed over to the army; ‘all non-military age inhabitants . . . would be allowed to leave town should they wish to’; ‘the lives and peace of the inhabitants would be guaranteed if their representatives . . . will cooperate with the army’. 75 Kiryati Brigade’s 42nd Battalion entered Ramle later that morning and imposed a curfew."

Lydda

"In Lydda, where no formal surrender was signed, events took a more violent turn. The Yiftah Brigade’s 3rd Battalion fought its way into town on the evening of 11 July, hard on the heels of the 89th Battalion’s blitz. Supported by a company from the brigade’s 1st Battalion, the 3rd Battalion took up positions in the town centre. A small force of Legionnaires and irregulars continued to hold out at the police fort on the southern edge of town. ‘Groups of old and young, women and children streamed down the streets in a great display of submissiveness, bearing white flags, and entered of their own free will the detention compounds we arranged in the mosque and church – Muslims and Christians separately.’ Soon, the two sites were overflowing: ‘There was a need to let the women and children go and to collect only the adult males.’ A curfew was imposed, by which time only a few thousand males were in detention.76

The calm in Lydda was shattered at 11:30 hours, 12 July, when two or three Legion armoured cars, commanded by Lt. Hamadallah al ‘Abdullah, either lost or on reconnaissance or seeking a missing officer, entered the town. A firefight erupted and, eventually, the armoured cars withdrew. 77 But the noise of the skirmish sparked sniping by armed Lydda townspeople against the occupying troops; some townspeople probably believed that the Legion was counter-attacking and tried to assist.78

The 300–400 Israeli troops in the town, dispersed in semi-isolated pockets in the midst of thousands of hostile townspeople, some still armed, felt threatened, vulnerable and angry: they had understood that the town had surrendered. 3rd Battalion OC Moshe Kelman ordered the troops to suppress the sniping – which Israeli and Arab historians and chroniclers, for different reasons, were later to describe as an ‘uprising’ – with the utmost severity. The troops were told to shoot at ‘any clear target’ or, alternatively, at anyone ‘seen on the streets’. 79 At 13:15, Yiftah HQ informed Dani HQ: ‘Battles have erupted in Lydda. We have hit an armoured car with a two-pounder [gun] and killed many Arabs. There are still exchanges of fire in the town. We have taken many wounded.’ 80

Some townspeople, shut up in their houses under curfew, took fright at the sound of shooting outside, perhaps believing that a massacre was in progress. They rushed into the streets – and were cut down by Israeli fire. Some of the soldiers also fired and lobbed grenades into houses from which snipers were suspected to be operating. In the confusion, dozens of unarmed detainees in one mosque compound, the Dahaimash Mosque, in the town centre, were shot and killed. Apparently, some of them tried to break out and escape, perhaps fearing that they would be massacred. IDF troops threw grenades and apparently fired PIAT (bazooka) rockets into the compound. 81

By 13:30, it was all over. The IDF had lost three–four dead and about a dozen wounded. Yeruham Cohen, an intelligence officer at Operation Dani headquarters, later described the scene:

The inhabitants of the town became panic-stricken. They feared that . . . the IDF troops would take revenge on them. It was a horrible, earsplitting scene. Women wailed at the top of their voices and old men said prayers, as if they saw their own deaths before their eyes. 82

Yiftah’s fire caused ‘some 250 dead . . . and many wounded’. 83 The ratio of Arab to Israeli casualties was hardly consistent with the descriptions of what had happened as an ‘uprising’ or battle. In any event, the Israeli officers in charge were later to regard the suppression of the ‘uprising’ (and the subsequent expulsion of the townspeople) as a dismal episode in Yiftah’s history. ‘There is no doubt that the Lydda–Ramle affair and the flight of the inhabitants, the uprising and the expulsion [geirush] that followed cut deep grooves in all who underwent [these experiences]’, Yiftah Brigade OC Mula Cohen was to write.84 These events were ac- companied and followed by a great deal of looting.

The Third Battalion was withdrawn from Lydda on the night of 13–14 July and, along with the brigade’s other battalions, spent the following day in a ‘soul-searching gathering’ in the Ben Shemen Wood, where they were berated by Cohen and forced to hand over their loot, which was subsequently thrown onto a large bonfire and destroyed. 85 But the looting of the empty houses of Ramle and Lydda by groups of troops continued, apparently, for weeks. 86"

Expulsion

"The shooting in the centre of Lydda also sealed the fate of the inhabitants of Ramle. As the outbreak of sniping had scared the Third Battalion, so, apparently, it had shaken Operation Dani HQ, where, during the previous hours, it was believed that the two towns were securely in IDF hands. The unexpected eruption highlighted the threat of a Jordanian counter-attack accompanied by a mass uprising by a large Arab population behind Israeli lines, as Allon’s brigades continued their push eastwards, towards the operation’s second-stage objectives, Latrun and Ramallah. The shooting focused minds at Operation Dani HQ at Yazur. A strong desire to depopulate the two towns already existed; the shooting seemed to offer the justification and opportunity for what the bombings and artillery barrages, insubstantial by World War II standards, had in the main failed to achieve.

Ben-Gurion was at Yazur that afternoon. According to the best ac- count of the meeting, at which Yadin, Ayalon and Allon, Israel Galili and Lt Colonel Yitzhak Rabin, chief of operations of Operation Dani (and of the Palmah), were present, someone, possibly Allon, after hearing of the outbreak in Lydda, proposed expelling the inhabitants of the two towns. Ben-Gurion said nothing, and no decision was taken. Then Ben-Gurion, Allon and Rabin stepped outside for a cigarette. Allon reportedly asked: ‘What shall we do with the Arabs?’ Ben-Gurion responded with a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said: ‘Expel them [garesh otam].’ 88"

"The Cabinet had been told nothing of the expulsion orders. Shitrit, as was his wont, had arrived in Ramle to look over his new ‘constituency’; after all, he was responsible for the Arab minority. He was shocked by what he heard and saw: Kiryati troops were in the midst of preparations to expel the inhabitants. Ben-Gal told him that ‘in line with an order from . . . Paicovitch [i.e., Allon], the IDF was about to take prisoner all males of military age, and the rest of the inhabitants – men, women and children – were to be taken beyond [sic] the border and left to their fate’. The army ‘intends to deal in the same way’ with the inhabitants of Lydda, Shitrit reported. 92 Upset and angry, Shitrit returned to Tel Aviv and went to Shertok, reporting on what he had heard. Shertok rushed to Ben-Gurion and the two men hammered out a set of policy guidelines for IDF behaviour towards the population of Lydda and Ramle. Ben-Gurion apparently failed to inform Shertok (or Shitrit) that he had been the source of the original expulsion orders; perhaps he denied that any had been issued.

Shertok then wrote to Shitrit explaining what had been agreed. The guidelines reached between Shertok and Ben-Gurion, according to Shertok’s letter to Shitrit of 13 July, were:

1. It should be publicly announced in the two towns that whoever wants to leave – will be allowed to do so.

2. A warning must be issued that anyone remaining behind does so on his own responsibility, and the Israeli authorities are not obliged to supply him with food.

3. Women, children, the old and the sick must on no account be forced to leave [the] town[s].

4. The monasteries and churches must not be harmed. Shertok appeared to believe that he had averted the expulsion – but he wasn’t certain. His letter ended with a caveat: ‘We all know how difficult it is to overcome [base] instincts during conquest. But I hope the aforementioned policy will be carried out.’ 93

True to his word, Ben-Gurion passed on (a variant of) these guidelines to General Staff\Operations, which transmitted them to Operation Dani headquarters at 23:30 hours, 12 July, in somewhat abridged form:

1. All are free to leave, apart from those who will be detained.

2. To warn that we are not responsible for feeding those who remain.

3. Not to force women, the sick, children and the old to go\walk [lalechet – a possibly deliberate ambiguity].

4. Not to touch monasteries and churches.

5. Searches without vandalism.

6. No robbery.’ 94

But Ben-Gurion, clearly, was saying different things to different people over 12–13 July. Finance Minister Kaplan, for instance, said that Ben-Gurion had told him – either late on 12 July or early 13 July – that the orders were that ‘the young male inhabitants [of Ramle and Lydda] were to be taken prisoner. The rest of the inhabitants were to be encouraged to leave the place [yesh le‘oded la‘azov et hamakom], but whoever stayed – Israel would have to take care of his maintenance.’ 95

Shitrit came away from his meeting with Shertok and his reading of Shertok’s letter of 13 July believing that he had averted a wholesale expulsion. He was wrong. During 13–14 July, the townspeople of both Ramle and Lydda were ordered and ‘encouraged’ to leave. At the same time, the inhabitants – especially of Lydda – probably needed little such ‘encouragement.’ Within a 72-hour period, they had undergone the shock of battle and unexpected conquest by the Jews, abandonment by the Arab Legion, a slaughter, a curfew with house-to-house searches, a round-up of able-bodied males and the separation of families, lack of food and medical attention, the flight of relatives, continuous isolation in their homes and general dread of the future. News of what had happened in Lydda probably reached Ramle, three kilometres away, almost immediately, causing fright. During the night of 12–13 July, many of the remaining inhabitants of the towns probably decided that it would be best not to live under Jewish rule. "

"The ‘deal’ was apparently reached in ‘negotiations’ between IDF intelligence officer Shmarya Guttman and other Palmah officers and some Lydda notables. The IDF said they wanted everyone to leave. The Arab notables said there could be no exodus so long as thousands of towns- people (many of them heads of families) were incarcerated in detention centres. The officers agreed to release the detainees if all the inhabitants left. The notables assented. Guttman then proceeded to the mosque, where his announcement that the detainees could leave was greeted with cries of joy. Town criers and IDF soldiers went about the town announcing that the inhabitants were about to leave and instructed them where to muster for the departure. 96"

"All the Israelis who witnessed these events agreed that the exodus, under a hot July sun, was an extended episode of suffering, especially for the Lydda refugees. Some were stripped by soldiers of their valuables as they left town or at checkpoints along the way. 100 Guttman subsequently described the trek:

A multitude of inhabitants walked one after another. Women walked burdened with packages and sacks on their heads. Mothers dragged children after them . . . Occasionally, [IDF] warning shots were heard . . . Occasionally, you encountered a piercing look from one of the youngsters . . . in the column, and the look said: ‘We have not yet surrendered. We shall return to fight you.’

For Guttman, an archaeologist, the spectacle conjured up ‘the memory of the exile of Israel [at Roman hands, two thousand years before]’; the town, he added, looked like ‘after a pogrom’. 101

One Israeli soldier (probably 3rd Battalion), from Kibbutz ‘Ein Harod, a few weeks after the event recorded his vivid impressions of the refugees’ thirst and hunger, of how ‘children got lost’ and of how a child fell into a well and drowned, ignored, as his fellow refugees fought each other to draw water. 102 Another soldier described the spoor left by the slow- shuffling columns, ‘to begin with [jettisoning] utensils and furniture and in the end, bodies of men, women and children, scattered along the way’. Quite a few refugees died on the road east – from exhaustion, dehydration and disease – before reaching temporary rest near and in Ramallah. Muhammad Nimr al Khatib, working from hearsay, put the Lydda refugee death toll during the trek eastward at ‘335’; Arab Legion OC John Glubb, more carefully wrote that ‘nobody will ever know how many children died’.103

The creation of the refugee columns, which for days cluttered the roads eastward, may have been one of the motives for the expulsion decision. The military thinking was simple and cogent: the IDF had just taken its two primary objectives and had, for the moment, run out of offensive steam. The Legion was expected to counter-attack (through Budrus, Jimzu, Ni‘lin and Latrun). Cluttering the main axes, deep into Arab territory, with human flotsam would severely hamper the Legion. And, inevitably, the large, new wave of refugees would sap Jordanian resources at a crucial moment. An IDF logbook noted on 15 July:

The refugees from Lydda and Ramle are causing the Arab Legion great problems. There are acute problems of housing and supplies . . . In this case, the Legion is interested in giving all possible help to the refugees as the Arab public is complaining that the Legion was unforthcoming in assisting Ramle and Lydda. 104

A Palmah report, probably written by Allon soon after, stated that the exodus, beside relieving Tel Aviv of a potential, long-term threat, had ‘clogged the Legion’s routes of advance’ and had foisted upon the Jordanians the problem of ‘maintaining another 45,000 souls . . . Moreover, the phenomenon of the flight of tens of thousands will no doubt cause demoralisation in every Arab area [the refugees] reach . . . This victory will yet have great effect on other sectors.’ 105 Ben-Gurion, in his wonted oblique manner, also referred to the strategic benefits: ‘The Arab Legion cables that on the road from Lydda and Ramle some 30,000 refugees are on the move, who are angry with the Legion. They demand bread. They must be transferred to Transjordan. In Transjordan there are anti- government demonstrations.’ 106

In the policy debate in Mapam during the following weeks, there was criticism of Allon’s use of the refugee columns to achieve strategic aims. Party co-leader, Meir Ya‘ari, said:

Many of us are losing their [human] image . . . How easily they speak of how it is possible and permissible to take women, children and old men and to fill the roads with them because such is the imperative of strategy. And this we say, the members of Hashomer Hatza‘ir, who remember who used this means against our people during the [Second World] war . . . I am appalled.107"

"The fall of Lydda and Ramle and the exodus of their inhabitants were to shake Jordan. Demonstrations erupted in Amman and other towns on both sides of the river, with the Legion – and particularly its British commanders – being charged, by Palestinians and outside Arab leaders, with ‘abandoning’ the towns if not actually colluding with the Zionists in their demise. 114 Even among the some 2,400 local militiamen and army- age adults detained by the IDF in the towns there was ‘great bitterness’ toward the Legion and King Abdullah, ‘who receives money from the British’.115 The arrival in Ramallah – population 10,000 – of as many as ‘70,000’ refugees severely undermined civilian morale. The acting mayor, Hana Khalaf, appealed to the king to order them to leave the town: they ‘are dispersed in the town streets, most of them poor, they suffer from great want of basic goods and water and pose a serious threat to health’. Abdullah advised ‘patience’. 116 The British consul-general in Jerusalem reported a similar state of affairs in Nablus and Bethlehem. 117"

Operations during the Second Truce, July - October 1948

"During the three months between the start of the Second Truce on 19 July and the renewal of hostilities on 15 October, the IDF carried out a number of operations designed to clear its rear and front line areas of actively or potentially hostile concentrations of Arab population."

During the days after Shoter, the IDF blew up much of ‘Ein Ghazal and Jab‘a. Arab spokesmen complained of Israeli brutality and atrocities. Tawfiq Abul Huda, the Jordanian prime minister, cabled the UN that the villagers were ‘subjected to savage treatment of the cruelest kind known to humanity. Masses were . . . forced to evacuate their homes . . .’ 161 Another complaint spoke of ‘4,000’ dead or missing in Ijzim. On the morning of 29 July, a team of UN observers, at Bernadotte’s behest, visited the village and found ‘not one body’. 162 But they were not looking hard. There were bodies in the villages, lying under rubble, in the outlying militia outposts, and in the surrounding hills, of those strafed and shelled by IDF aircraft and artillery, or killed in ambushes. According to one IDF report, ‘some 200 [Arab] bodies’ were found in the Little Triangle. 163 IDF teams buried them.164

The main atrocity story that surfaced was that IDF troops had burned alive 28 Arabs. 165 Israel vehemently denied the allegation. The story may have originated in the burning of 25–30 bodies ‘in an advanced state of decomposition’ found near ‘Ein Ghazal. For lack of timber, explained Walter Eytan, the bodies were only partially consumed, and captured villagers had been assigned to bury them. 166 ‘Azzam Pasha had alleged that most of the 28 had been refugees from Tira who had fled to the ‘Little Triangle’. On 28 July, a United Nations observer visited the area and, according to Bernadotte, found ‘no evidence to support claims of massacre’.167

However, Arab pressure resulted in a thorough UN investigation of Shoter. Altogether, five teams were deployed and, basing themselves largely on interviews with refugees from the three villages encamped in the Jenin area, they worked out what had happened and compiled lists of who was missing or killed. According to Bernadotte, Israel’s assault on the villages was ‘unjustified . . . especially in view of the offer of the Arab villagers to negotiate and the apparent Israeli failure fully to explore this offer’. Bemadotte condemned Israel’s subsequent ‘systematic destruction’ of ‘Ein Ghazal and Jab‘a and demanded, ‘in the light of the findings of the Board’ of inquiry, that the inhabitants of all three villages be allowed to return, with Israel restoring their damaged or demolished houses. Bernadotte concluded by saying that altogether, ‘the number killed [in the three villages] could not have exceeded 130’ and that ‘no great number were captured’ (he was responding to the allegation that ‘4,000’ Arabs had been ‘massacred’ or ‘captured’). 168 The investigating ‘Central Truce Supervision Board’, chaired by W.E. Riley, a seconded US Marine Corps Brigadier General who later became the first head of the UN Truce Supervision Organisation in the Middle East, concluded that ‘with the completion of the attack . . . all the inhabitants . . . were forced to evacuate’. The investigators found no evidence that, in the days before the IDF assault, the villagers had violated the truce (that began on 18 July). The assault, on the other hand, had been a violation. 169"

"The institution of the Second Truce and the relative quiet that descended on the front lines tempted the refugees to try to return to their mhomes or, at least, to reap their crops along and behind the lines. Immediately after the start of the truce, IDF units on all the fronts were instructed to bar the way, including by use of live fire, to Arabs seeking to cross into Israeli territory, be it for resettlement, theft, smuggling, harvesting, sabotage or espionage. 176 Such instructions were periodically reissued.177 The units were also instructed to scour the now-empty villages for infiltrators, to kill or expel them, and to patrol still-populated villages where illegal residents were to be identified, detained and expelled. Different units implemented these orders with varying degrees of efficiency, severity and consistency.

Pressure on the national-level leadership to act firmly against Arab infiltration was applied by settlements, especially in hard-hit areas like the Coastal Plain, which feared terrorism and theft; by officials who feared for the future of the new settlements; by IDF units deployed along the front lines, who saw the infiltrators as a security threat; 178 and by the police. On 29 August, Police Commissioner Yehezkeel Sahar wrote to Police Minister Shitrit:

There are organised groups of Arabs infiltrating between the [IDF] positions at night across the [truce] lines and stealing cows. Last week a farmer was even murdered, and there is no doubt that their successes in this area may open the way for the Arab military commanders to exploit this for tactical purposes . . . We see the matter as grave . . .

Shitrit passed the letter on to Ben-Gurion, adding his own cautions:

From [Sahar’s] words you will realise that the Arab infiltration . . . is a very worrying phenomenon, undermining security in the country . . . In my tours around the country I have personally encountered this phenomen mainly in Upper Galilee and Beit Shean, where Arabs infiltrate nightly in their hundreds, steal and vandalize and do so with impunity."

"Perhaps the most extensive rear-area Second Truce ‘cleansing’ operation was carried out by Giv‘ati around Yibna-‘Arab Suqrir-Nabi Rubin, an area of sand dunes north of the Egyptian Army’s area of control... The troops – of the 55th Battalion, the brigade Cavalry Unit, Samson’s Foxes and the 1st Territorial Corps – destroyed ‘most of the stone houses and the [wooden] shacks were torched; [and] killed 10 Arabs, wounded three and captured 3’. The troops killed about 20 camels, cows and mules. There were no IDF casualties. One of the troops described the operation in great detail. He wrote that they set out with a feeling of ‘merriment’ [‘alitzut]. Later, they captured several ‘fear- filled, shocked’ Arabs whose ‘miserable appearance caused mixed feelings of contempt and pity’. The soldiers sat around discussing whether or not to kill them. In the end, after deciding, in half-jest, that they should not be killed but turned into ‘drawers of water and hewers of wood’ – as Joshua had done three thousand years before with his Gibeonite prisoners – the troops fed them bread and cheese and gave them water. "

Conclusion

"With his penchant for hyperbole and lies, on 4 August Haj Amin al Husseini complained, more than two weeks into the truce, that ‘for two weeks now . . . the Jews have continued with their attacks on the Arab villages and outposts in all areas. Stormy battles are continuing in the villages of Sataf, Deiraban, Beit Jimal, Ras Abu ‘Amr, ‘Aqqur, and ‘Artuf . . .’ 211 But there was an element of truth in the charge. Periodically through the Second Truce, the IDF raided Arab villages across the lines, in Arab-held territory, moving in and killing local militiamen and civilians, blowing up houses and then withdrawing. Yigal Yadin explained: ‘The lack of operations on our part during the truce prompts the Arab irregular forces to acts of robbery, infiltration, etc. Therefore, ambushes and light raids [pshitot kalot] against the border villages should be organised.’ 212 The aim was usually retaliation and deterrence."

"Altogether, the Israeli offensives of the ‘Ten Days’ and the subsequent clearing operations probably sent something over 100,000 Arabs into exile in Jordanian-held eastern Palestine, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and the Upper Galilee pocket held by Qawuqji’s ALA."

Chapter 8: The Fourth Wave: The battles and exodus of October - November 1948