Israeli historian Benny Morris describes Operation Nachshon as "a watershed, characterized by an intention and effort to clear a whole area, permanently, of Arab villages and hostile or potentially hostile villagers." The operation was planned by Jewish Agency chairman David Ben-Gurion and the Haganah General Staff at the beginning of April. On the night of 31 March−1 April 1948, Ben-Gurion and members of the Haganah General Staff decided to launch a special operation to overrun the villages on both sides of the highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They designed the operation within the general framework of Plan Dalet. A force of 1,500 Palmach and Haganah troops (three battalions) was mobilized specifically for this offensive. Their operational orders stated that "all the Arab villages along the [Khulda−Jerusalem] axis were to be treated as enemy assembly or jump-off bases."
Operation Nachshon began with the occupation of Dayr Muhaysin and neighboring Khulda (both in Ramla District) on 3 April. Qalunya, about 3 km due east of Bayt Naqquba, was one of the main targets of the operation and was attacked on 11 April, according to the History of the Haganah. The New York Times reported that Haganah units "blew up a score of houses and left the entire village ablaze." The sources give differing accounts of the manner in which Qalunya was depopulated. The Times correspondent wrote that most villagers had been evacuated and that the rest were ordered out before the village was destroyed. Morris claims that the villagers had already fled on 2 or 3 April as a result of a Palmach attack, but an Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL) broadcast stated at the time that the inhabitants of Qalunya had fled as a result of the Deir Yasin massacre on 9 April.
Deir Yasin (in the Jerusalem district) was the site of the best-known and perhaps bloodiest atrocity of the war. The IZL and Stern Gang (LEHI) attacked the village and, according to their own testimony and that of the Haganah, killed some 245 people, including women, children, and the elderly. The occupation of Deir Yasin fell within the general framework of the Haganah's Operation Nachshon.
According to Morris, the inhabitants of the area seized by Operation Nachshon fled either before or during the conquest of their villages. For this reason, he says, expulsion orders were not necessary. By 15 April the Palmach and Haganah battalions had achieved the operation's objectives. The New York Times stated that the occupation of the villages was an "important tactical success" in the battle for Jerusalem.
Selected bibliography
The New York Times. 8 April 1948, 10 April 1948, 12 April 1948, 17 April 1948, 27 May 1948.
al-Aref, Aref. Al-Nakba [The Catastrophe]. 6 Volumes. Beirut and Sidon: al-Maktaba al-Asriyya. 1956-1960, p. 158, 497, 514.
Dinur, Ben-Zion, Yehuda Slutski, Sha'ul Avigur, Yitzchaq Ben-Tzvi, and Yisra'el Galili. Sefer Toldot ha-Haganah [The History of the Haganah]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1972, pp. 1546-48, 1560-63.
Israeli Ministry of Defense. Toldot Milchemet ha-Qomemiyyut [The History of the War of Independence]. Tel Aviv: Marakhot, 1959, p. 205 ff.
Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. xvii, 75, 111-15, 158.
al-Qawuqji, Fawzi. "Memoirs, 1948. Part One." Journal of Palestine Studies I (4): 27-58. "Memoirs, 1948. Part Two." Journal of Palestine Studies II (1): 3-33, 1972, p. 8.