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Operation Nachshon

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aliases

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Summary

The first Plan Dalet operation, in Pappe’s account: the April 1948 campaign on the western slopes of the Jerusalem mountains, halfway along the road to Tel-Aviv, whose sudden massive expulsions served as the model for future campaigns.

Details

  • The first area chosen for putting Plan Dalet into action was the rural hills on the western slopes of the Jerusalem mountains; maintaining isolated Jewish settlements and unblocking the road to Jerusalem were its stated purposes, and the sudden massive expulsions it employed were to prove the most effective means for both (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.116-117).

  • Every brigade was ordered to move to State Dalet (Mazav Dalet) and told that the villages it would capture, cleanse or destroy would be decided in consultation with its advisors on Arab affairs and intelligence officers; whereas the official plan gave villages the option to surrender, the operational orders exempted no village for any reason (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.117).

  • The Palmach orders of 1 April 1948, finalised the night before at David Ben-Gurion’s house, made the destruction of Arab villages and the eviction of the villagers the operation’s principal objective (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.117).

  • It was the first operation in which all the various Jewish military organisations endeavoured to act together as a single army, providing the basis for the future Israeli Defence Forces (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.117).

  • Qastal fell on 9 April 1948 and Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni was killed defending it; the other villages of Greater Jerusalem then swiftly fell, were expelled and demolished, Deir Yassin among them on the same day (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.118-119).

  • Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni’s units in the area had been retaliating for earlier Jewish attacks by firing randomly at Jewish traffic on the road, wounding and killing passengers (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.118).

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Dalet Plan, Deir Yassin, Haganah, Palmach

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