Operation Yiftah

Operation Yiftach (Hebrew: מבצע יפתח‎, Mivtza Yiftah) was a Palmach offensive carried out between 28 April and 23 May 1948. The objectives were to capture Safed and to secure the eastern Galilee before the British Mandate ended on 14 May 1948. It was carried out by two Palmach battalions commanded by Yigal Allon.

Operation Yiftach was part of Plan Dalet which aimed at securing the areas allocated to the Jewish state in the UN partition plan before the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. With the ending of the Mandate in sight, British forces had begun to withdraw from less strategic areas such as north-eastern Galilee. In these areas there was a scramble by both sides to occupy abandoned police and military facilities. Local militias and Arab volunteers had taken over the Palestine Police forts in Safed and at Nebi Yusha.

On 17 April the Haganah launched an attack on the fort at Nebi Yusha, which failed. A second attack on 20 April resulted in the deaths of twenty two of the attackers. As a result of this defeat Yigal Allon, the Palmach C.O. was given command of the operation. Nebi Yusha was finally taken on 20 April in an attack in which planes dropped incenduary bombs on the fort. The army camp at Rosh Pinna was handed over to the Haganah/Palmach by its British commander on 28 April. Allon approached the campaign believing that the best way of securing the frontiers was to clear the area completely of all Arab forces and inhabitants. This operation was to be the foundation of his reputation that 'he left no Arab civilian communities in his wake.'

Safed had a pre-war population of 10,000–12,000 Arabs and 1,500 Jews, and was the base for 700-800 local and foreign irregulars. The attack on Safed was similar to the attack on Arab Tiberias on 16–17 April, in that it began with a particularly destructive attack on a neighbouring village resulting in loss of morale in the town.

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