Capture of Haifa in 1948
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Haifa was one of the primary objectives of Plan Dalet in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The operation was named Operation Misparayim which is a Hebrew word that means "scissors". It was captured by the Carmeli Brigade and Irgun April 20-21, 1948.
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Background
The city of Haifa at the northern edge of the Sharon Plain resided well within the part of Palestine that the 1947 UN Partition plan had alloted to a Jewish state. It was one of the most important cities in Palestine at the time and the Zionist leadership considered it of uttermost importance that it was seized in the initial phase of the conflict. It had an oil refinery and Palestine's largest port. Through that city, the Jews received most of their foreign armaments and supplies before and during the war. At the time, Haifa had a population of 146,000 roughly evenly split between Jews and Arabs (the Arab part of the population had since 1947 constantly dwindled and in April 1948, only half of the previous Arab population remained), with the Jews living in the Jewish quarter, Hadar Hacarmel, and the Arabs in the Arab quarter. In preparation for the total evacuation of all forces from the mandate on May 14, the British begun to remove their troops from Haifa in April. The British had previously controlled the city and maintained a buffer between the Jewish and Arab populations. Their withdrawal paved the way for a Jewish takeover of the city.
April 18, 1948 Hugh C. Stockwell, British commander in Haifa, summoned Harry Beilin, the Jewish Agency liaison officer to his headquarter. Stockwell informed Beilin his intention to immediately evacuate the British forces from the borders and no-man's-land zones in Haifa and that the evacuation would be completed on April 20. Haganah saw this as a promise that the British would not interfere in their takeover of the city. That thought was further reinforced by the fact that the fightning in Tiberias and the depopulation of Arabs there had not been interrupted by the British.
The battle
The attack on Haifa began on 10:30 April 21. 5,000 troops from the Lehi (group) and the Carmeli Brigade participated in the offensive that started from the Jewish neighbourhood Hadara Ha Carmel. The Arab quarters suffered mortar shelling and panic ensued. The harbour filled with Arabs fleeing the city.
The 350-500 Arab irregulars and elements of the Arab Liberation Army could not mount a real defense. Furthermore, the 300 defenders of Al-Tira who tried to reinforce the city were intercepted by the British. The next day the Arab National Committee of Haifa were prepared to ask for a truce via Stockwell. He complied and returned 15 minutes later, but the truce terms he brought with him from the Haganah were not readily acceptable to the Arab side. The conditions were: disarmament of the Arab completely and handing in all their weapons within three hours, the assembly of all "male foreign elements" in a certain location on the condition that they depart from Palestine in 24 hours and curfew.
In the afternoon a meeting was held in the town hall to discuss the terms of the truce. For various reasons, the negotiations didn't go anywhere, and in the evening the Arab delegation declared their inability to endorse the proposed truce agreement and requested protection for the evacuation of Haifa's Arab citizens. The request came as a surprise but was granted. The next day, April 23, the Arab leadership met with Stockwell to discuss the organization of the evacuation, despite the efforts of some Jewish civil leaders to block the flight.
Aftermath
After a few days only about 3,000 of Haifa's Arab residents remained. The rest, 40,000-50,000, became refugees. Some arrived on boats in Lebanon; others took the landway to Acre, where they were again uprooted by Jewish troops a few weeks later. For the Zionists, the capture of Haifa was a great success as it was the first Arab city to fall. Stockwell's behaviour in Haifa was not viewed with favor by the British government in London; Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin reprimanded the army authorities in Palestine.
External links
- Were the Palestinians Expelled? (pro-Israel) (http://www.netanyahu.org/werpalex.html)
- Palestinians were driven into the sea (pro-Arab) (http://www.angelfire.com/ia/palestinefoever/palestineintosea.html)
- Haifa (pro-Arab) (http://www.palestineremembered.com/Haifa/Haifa/Story193.html)