1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (33 page)

While the Palmah was busy with Operation Yiftah, the Golani Brigade, to the south, also moved to seal potential entry points for the invaders. The brigade cleared the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, with the large village of Samakh at its center, and the Lower Jordan and Beit Shean Valleys, including the town of Beisan.

The battle for Samakh, on 29 April, was short and relatively costless. The fall of Tiberias had gravely undermined the villagers' morale. As in Jaffa, an initial Haganah attack on 23 April, in which the British intervened in support of the villagers,255 resulted in the flight of many of the inhabitants and the arrival of foreign Arab volunteers, who systematically plundered the empty homes and shops. A small force of Jordanian volunteers established itself in the police fort. A Golani sapper team blew a hole in one of the fort's walls, and perhaps with some bribery-driven connivance, the Haganah took the fort and then the nearby village, the remaining militiamen and population fleeing to Jordan and Syria.256

Beisan's turn came a few days later. As Yosef Weitz had put it on 4 May, "The emptying of the valley is the order of the day."257 Tiberias and Haifa had triggered a partial flight of Beisan's population; the Haganah occupation on 27-a8 April of the Gesher police fort, to the north, and a neighboring army camp further eroded morale. On the night of Io-11 May, Golani conquered two neighboring villages, Farwana and al-Ashrafiya, the inhabitants fleeing to Jordan. Golani blew up the houses and, the following night, occupied a dominant hillock, Tel al-Husn (biblical Beit Shean), from which it mortared the town. One of the town's two militia commanders, Ismail alFaruqi, fled, followed by most of the ALA contingent. A short negotiation with the remaining notables resulted in a surrender, and Golani troops moved in on 13 May.258 The townspeople were told that they could, if peaceable, stay.2-` The occupying troops were well behaved. A kibbutznik from the area was appointed military governor, and local Arab "inspectors"-who donned "yellow armbands," as a reporting HIS officer sadly noted-were selected to supervise water allocation and hygiene.260 Nonetheless, within days the remaining one thousand to twelve hundred inhabitants were expelled-most on IS May across the Jordan and a handful, mainly Christians, on 28 May, to Arab-held Nazareth.26' The Haganah had feared that "the inhabitants might revolt" behind the Israeli lines.262 Following Beisan's fill, neighboring bedouin tribes moved to Jordan. "The valley was almost completely cleansed of its Arab inhabitants.... This was the first time that the Beit Shean Valley had become a purely Hebrew valley," noted the Golani Brigade's official history.263

Together, the Yiftah and Golani Brigades, over late April-mid-May, had conquered Eastern Galilee and largely cleared out its Arab inhabitants.

Safad and Beisan were, in effect, part of the Haganah's countrywide effort to improve its position in preparation for the prospective Arab invasion-"to block as far as possible the way for [enemy] armor," as Yadin told the People's Administration (minhelet haam) 264 Beside improving defensestrenches and bunkers in and around towns and rural settlements265-local offensive operations were launched, in line with Plan D, to gain last-minute advantages before the impending onslaught.

In the south, Giv`ati and the (Palmah) Negev Brigade expanded their area of control by capturing and depopulating a series of villages. On 4-6 May, Giv'ati troops surrounded the villages of Aqir and Qatra, demanding that the inhabitants hand over their weapons. Some were handed over, but the Israelis suspected that the villagers were holding back-and in Qatra a Jewish officer was killed-so Giv`ati took a handful of villagers hostage until more arms were produced. Aqir's inhabitants promptly fled, perhaps fearing that, if they stayed, fellow Arabs would accuse them of treacherously accepting Jewish sovereignty. At Qatra, the inhabitants were either intimidated into flight or expelled a few days later (after the start of the Egyptian invasion ).166

On q -to May, Giv`ati launched mivtza barak (Operation Lightning). The objective was "to deny the enemy [the prospective Egyptian invaders] a base for future operations ... by creating general panic.... The aim is to force the Arab inhabitants `to move."' The villages initially targeted were Beit Daras, Bash-shit, Batani al-Sharqi, and Batani al-Gharbi. The planners hoped that their fall would also trigger the abandonment of their smaller satellites.267 Beit Daras offered serious resistance, and some twenty villagers were killed (along with four Israelis) and forty wounded before the village was conquered. Giv ati's official history notes that "the attackers took care not to harm noncombatants, old people, women, and children [even though Beit Daras was considered] a village of murderers, the hands of its inhabitants covered in blood."268 The conquest and destruction of Beit Daras triggered flight from neighboring Batani al-Sharqi, Ibdis, Julis, and Beit Affa. At Batani al-Sharqi Givati troops executed four men.269

In the second stage of the operation (codenamed Operation Maccabbi), which began on 13 May, Giv`ati units stormed the village of Abu Shusha, near Ramla, and, after taking some notables hostage, disarmed the nearby village of Nana without battle. At Abu Shusha some villagers apparently were executed.270 During the following days, Giv'ati captured the large village of Mughar, which the troops found almost completely abandoned, al-Qubab, Sawafir al-Sharqiya, and adjoining Sawafir al-Gharbiyya. Giv'ati's Fifty-first Battalion had been instructed "to clear the front line ... to cleanse [the Sawafir villages] of inhabitants ... [and] to burn the greatest possible number of houses."271 The brigade's official historian noted the troops' penchant to loot conquered villages.272

With the Egyptian invasion just hours away, the Negev Brigade's Ninth Battalion conquered the village of Burayr, apparently committing atrocities and killing several dozen villagers, and drove out the inhabitants of the nearby villages of Sumsum and Najd. A fortnight later, the brigade also raided the neighboring villages of Muharraqa and Kaufakha, driving out the inhabitants, and conquered Beit Tima and Huj, a "friendly" village that the brigade commanders nonetheless believed posed a danger.273

Observers understood the grim logic behind the Haganah operations: the Jews, complained Arab League secretary-general 'Azzam, were "driving out the inhabitants [from areas] on or near roads by which Arab regular forces could enter the country.... The Arab armies would have the greatest difficulty in even entering Palestine after May 15th."274 He was right.

In Jerusalem, the `Etzioni Brigade, aided by IZL troops, mounted a major push, mivtza kilshon (Operation Pitchfork), designed "to safeguard the Jewish area of Jerusalem ... in face of the [expected] penetration by ... mechanized and armored forces of the regular armies of the Arab states. "275 The operation, which ran from 14 to 18 May, involved three thrusts-the conquest of the Police School and the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, north of the Old City; the takeover in the center of the city of the large building complexes fortified by the British during the last two years of the Mandate (known collectively as "Bevingrad" or "Bevingrads"), including the central post office, the "Russian Compound" police fort and court buildings, as well as the Notre Dame monastery-French Hospital complex overlooking the Old City's northern wall, the YMCA and the King David Hotel; and, in the south, the occupation of the abandoned Allenby Barracks, the wholly or partly Arab neighborhoods of Talbiyeh, the German Colony, the Greek Colony, and Abu Tor, and the train station and adjacent Government Printing Office building.

The Bevingrads were occupied without a fight, due to prior British-Haganah agreement. The core of the agreement was reached in meetings on 12 May. At 7:00 eM, 14 May, the town commander, Brigadier Charles Jones, called in the Haganah liaison and told him that by 4:oo PM, no British troops would be left in the city. It was, in fact, a nod to begin operations and was accompanied by a Godspeed: "I am sure," said Jones, "that your State will be established.... I wish you good luck and success." Yosef Schnurman, the Haganah officer, expressed "appreciation" for Britain's work "during the past 26 [sic] years" and a hope that "the differences will be forgotten."276

The occupation of these areas was followed by large-scale looting and vandalizing of Arab property by Jewish troops and neighbors. Walter Eytan, dragged by acting American consul general William Burdett to look at a house in Bak'a, reported: "Every single room in the house had been smashed up.... The whole place looked as if a band of savages had passed through it. It was not merely a question of ordinary theft, but of deliberate and senseless destruction.... A portrait had been left hanging on the wall with the face neatly cut out with a knife. As we went from room to room I felt more and more speechless and more and more ashamed.... I could only express my great regret. "277

Jerusalem Haganah Home Guardsmen topped up their fortifications, prepared Molotov cocktails and booby-trapped buildings for the event of a successful Arab penetration. But the Haganah refrained from planning, or mounting, a major assault on the Old City, apparently guided by political considerations. As Ben-Gurion put it, "Jerusalem is different. It could antagonize the Christian world. "278

In the Coastal Plain, the Alexandroni Brigade cleaned out a number of pockets of resistance. On 13 May, units of the Thirty-second and Thirty-third battalions attacked and overran Kafr Saba, between the Jewish settlement of Kfar Saba and the Arab town of Qalqilya. The local village militia, supported by an enlarged platoon of ALA troops, had intermittently attacked Jewish traffic and Kfar Saba during the previous months. The inhabitants fled the village as the Haganah troops entered; on the road out to Qalqilya the ALA extorted five Palestine pounds from each fleeing refugee.279

Somewhat belatedly, on the night of 22-23 May the Thirty-third Battalion also conquered the large fishing village of Tantura, which lay northwest of Zikhron Yaakov along the Tel Aviv-Haifa coast road. The village had spurned Haganah demands to surrender. During the nightlong battle, the villagers put up stiff resistance, killing thirteen Alexandroni troops and a sailor before giving up. More than seventy villagers died. In the 19gos Arab journalists charged that the Israeli troops had carried out a large-scale massacre of disarmed militiamen and villagers in the hours after Tantura fell, a charge expanded in a master's thesis by an Israeli student, who, on the basis of Arab oral testimony (and the distortion of testimony by Alexandroni veterans), argued that up to 250 villagers had been systematically murdered.250 Although some Alexandroni veterans hinted at dark deeds, most flatly denied the massacre charge. Documentary evidence indicates that the Alexandroni troops murdered a handful of POWs-and expelled the inhabitants-but provides no grounds for believing that a large-scale massacre occurred.28'

The major last-minute, Plan D-generated operation in the North was mivtza ben-ami (Operation Ben-Ami), geared to coopting Western Galilee to the territory of the Jewish state and to blocking a major potential invasion route, the coast road, from Lebanon into Palestine282-though the initial operational order spoke more modestly of breaking through to the isolated kibbutzim Hanita and Eilon, pushing through supply convoys, bringing out their children, and, to assure the convoys' safety, conquering the villages of Sumeiriya, Zib, and Bassa along the way.283 Intelligence assessments spoke of widespread demoralization in the villages and in Acre, the regional urban center, with many families fleeing the area 284 The operation, commanded by Carmel, proceeded smoothly, with Carmeli's three-battalion column advancing rapidly during 13-14 May from Haifa's northern suburbs through Sumeiriya (which was immediately leveled), Zib, and Bassa to Eilon, Matzuba, and Hanita. Simultaneously, troops were landed by boat near Sumeiriya. Carmel described Arab fatalities in the "29-hour" operation as forty. Three Israelis died, one went missing, and five were wounded.285

Carmeli then shelled and stormed Acre, which raised a white flag on i8 May. The town was ripe for the taking, thoroughly demoralized by the fall of Haifa the previous month and by repeated attacks on its outskirts. After one attack, on 26 April, one resident wrote to his son, Munir Effendi Nur, then in Nablus: "The shells ... fell inside the city.... This attack caused panic among the inhabitants, most of who left or intend to leave. We may travel to Beirut. The preparations for flight from Acre encompass all levels [of society]: the rich, the middle class, and the poor-all ... are selling everything they can."286 By the end of April, Acre was crowded with refugees from Haifa. By 7 May, there was "no electricity or fuel.... There was an outbreak of typhus.... Many of the permanent inhabitants ... had fled."287 The locals wanted a ceasefire but the AHC refused to permit it,288 and by n May most of the NC members had fled.289 The commanders of the militia, the Haifa "expatriates" Amin `Izz al-Din and Yunis Nafa'a, with some of their men, fled by boat to Lebanon on i4 May; their successor, Mahmoud Saffuri, fled on 16 May. 290 So when Carmel's troops attacked late on 16 May, the inhabitants responded promptly to the brigade's demand to surrender (otherwise "we will destroy you to the last man and utterly") .291 Shortly after midnight, between 17 and 18 May, a party of notables appeared at Carmeli's forward HQ and signed an instrument of unconditional surrender.292 On 18 May, the troops moved in and scoured the town for weapons and militiamen: "The town ... looked like after a war. [There were] bodies everywhere. Their number is estimated at 6o."293 Carmel cabled the General Staff: "Western Galilee is in our hands."294 Some officers suggested that Acre's inhabitants be expelled.295 But this was never acted on. Four soldiers of Carmeli's Twenty-second Battalion raped an Arab girl and murdered her father (they were later sentenced to three years in jail).216 Otherwise, the Israeli military government rapidly reorganized the town's services and a substantial population stayed put, becoming Israeli citizens.