141-486: Military engagements Massacres and civilian attacks 1948 Arab–Israeli War Southern front Central and Jerusalem front Northern front International Massacres Biological warfare Plan Dalet ( Hebrew : תוכנית ד' , Tokhnit dalet " Plan D ") was a Zionist military plan executed during the 1948 Palestine war for the conquest of territory in Mandatory Palestine in preparation for
282-470: A Davidic Jewish clan from Babylon . But according to archaeological and literary evidence, upper and lower Galilee were 'very much in constant touch with the gentile, Greek-speaking cities that surrounded them.' Many Galileans were bilingual and made daily contacts with Jerusalem and gentiles around the Roman territory. Markus Cromhout states that while Galileans, Judeans and diasporic Judeans were all Jewish,
423-563: A Lehi raid ten days earlier. From January onward, operations became increasingly militarized, with the intervention of a number of regiments of the Arab Liberation Army (consisting of volunteers from Arab countries) inside Palestine, each active in a variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee and Samaria . Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of
564-859: A pagan population with close ties to the Phoenician coast. During the expansion of the Hasmonean kingdom of Judea , much of the Galilee region was conquered and annexed by the first Hasmonean king Aristobulus I (104–103 BCE). Following the Hasmonean conquest, there was a significant Jewish influx into the area. Sites including Yodfat , Meiron , Sepphoris , Shikhin , Qana , Bersabe , Zalmon , Mimlah, Migdal , Arbel , Kefar Hittaya, and Beth Ma'on have archeological-chronological evidence for this settlement wave. Josephus , who based his account on Timagenes of Alexandria , claimed that Aristobulus I had forcibly converted
705-481: A Roman client state and Antipas paid tribute to the Roman Empire in exchange for Roman protection. The Romans did not station troops in Galilee, but threatened to retaliate against anyone who attacked it. As long as he continued to pay tribute, Antipas was permitted to govern however he wished and was permitted to mint his own coinage. Antipas was relatively observant of Jewish laws and customs. Although his palace
846-599: A blueprint for future plans. The blueprint was refined in subsequent adjustments (A, B, C) before emerging in its final form over a decade later as Plan Dalet. From 1945 onward, the Haganah designed four general military plans, the implementation of the final version of which eventually led to the creation of Israel and the dispossession of the Palestinians: On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to approve
987-652: A center for kabbalah . In the mid-17th century Galilee and Mount Lebanon became the scene of the Druze power struggle , which came in parallel with much destruction in the region and decline of major cities. In the mid-18th century, Galilee was caught up in a struggle between the Arab leader Zahir al-Umar and the Ottoman authorities who were centred in Damascus . Zahir ruled Galilee for 25 years until Ottoman loyalist Jezzar Pasha conquered
1128-629: A combination of agriculture, fishing, and specialized crafts. Excavations in villages like Nazareth have revealed extensive agricultural infrastructure, including numerous olive presses and granaries. Olive was extensively grown in parts of Upper Galilee. Many towns and villages, particularly those around the Sea of Galilee benefited from both fertile land and a thriving fishing industry. In Tarichaea ( Magdala ), salted, dried, and pickled fish were significant export goods. Galilee also had specialized production centers. Shihin , near Sepphoris, produced most of
1269-513: A decline in population due to raids by nomadic groups and insufficient protection from the central government. After the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, the Galilee formed part of Jund al-Urdunn (the military district of Jordan), itself part of Bilad al-Sham (Islamic Syria). Its major towns were Tiberias the capital of the district, Qadas , Beisan , Acre , Saffuriya , and Kabul . During
1410-582: A few " Davidka " mortars, which had been indigenously designed and produced. They were inaccurate but had a loud explosion that demoralised the enemy. Much of the munitions used by the Israelis came from the Ayalon Institute , a clandestine bullet factory beneath kibbutz Ayalon , which produced about 2.5 million bullets for Sten guns. The munitions produced by the Ayalon Institute were said to have been
1551-527: A greatly extended range) by Hezbollah on the whole of Galilee, with long-range, ground-launched missiles hitting as far south as the Sharon Plain , Jezreel Valley , and Jordan Valley below the Sea of Galilee. In 2006, there were 1.2 million residents in Galilee, of whom 47% were Jewish. The Jewish Agency has attempted to increase the Jewish population in this area, but the non-Jewish population also has
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#17328513603741692-559: A highly organised, national force, since the Arab riots of 1920 – 21 , and throughout the riots of 1929 , Great Uprising of 1936–39 , and World War II. It had a mobile force, the HISH , which had 2,000 full-time fighters (men and women) and 10,000 reservists (all aged between 18 and 25) and an elite unit, the Palmach composed of 2,100 fighters and 1,000 reservists. The reservists trained three or four days
1833-467: A list of the villages or neighborhoods that had to be occupied, destroyed, and their inhabitants expelled". The plan section 3, under (b) Consolidation of Defense Systems and Fortifications calls for the occupation of police stations, the control of government installations, and the protection of secondary transportation arteries. Part 4 under this heading includes the following controversial paragraphs: The paragraph (g) Counterattacks Inside and Outside
1974-593: A month and went back to civilian life the rest of the time. These mobile forces could rely on a garrison force, the HIM ( Heil Mishmar , lit. Guard Corps), composed of people aged over 25. The Yishuv's total strength was around 35,000 with 15,000 to 18,000 fighters and a garrison force of roughly 20,000. There were also several thousand men and women who had served in the British Army in World War II who did not serve in any of
2115-536: A potential powerful fifth column , by belligerency and expulsion". According to research by Shay Hazkani, Ben-Gurion and segments of the religious Zionist leadership drew parallels between the war and the biblical wars of extermination, and states this was not a fringe position. IDF indoctrination pamphlets were distributed to recruits instructing them that God “demands a revenge of extermination without mercy to whoever tries to hurt us for no reason.”. Plan Dalet , or Plan D, ( Hebrew : תוכנית ד' , Tokhnit dalet )
2256-539: A rebel named Judah plundered Galilee's largest city, Sepphoris . According to Josephus, the Syrian governor Publius Quinctilius Varus responded by sacking Sepphoris and selling the population into slavery, but the region's archaeology lacks evidence of such destruction. After the death of Herod the Great that same year, his son Herod Antipas was appointed as tetrarch of Galilee by the Roman emperor Augustus . Galilee remained
2397-496: A response to a particular, local challenge. But by the end of the period it was clear that a dramatic conceptual change had taken place and that the Yishuv had gone over to the offensive and was now engaged in a war of conquest. That war of conquest was prefigured in Plan D." Ilan Pappé writes that although "official Israeli historiography" considers the implementation of Plan Dalet to have been
2538-646: A result of this climate, flora and fauna thrive in the region. At the same time, many birds annually migrate from colder climates to Africa and back through the Hula –Jordan corridor. The streams and waterfalls, the latter mainly in Upper Galilee, along with vast fields of greenery and colourful wildflowers, as well as numerous towns of biblical importance, make the region a popular tourist destination . Due to its high rainfall 900–1,200 millimetres (35–47 in), mild temperatures and high mountains (Mount Meron's elevation
2679-571: A security force on the Israeli side of the international border recognized by the United Nations . The move brought a collapse to the South Lebanon Army and takeover of Southern Lebanon by Hezbollah. However, despite Israeli withdrawal, clashes between Hezbollah and Israel continued along the border, and UN observers condemned both for their attacks. The 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict was characterized by round-the-clock Katyusha rocket attacks (with
2820-914: A shift from defence to offence, in reality Zionist forces had already been on the offense and conducting ethnic cleansing since December 1947. Pappé writes that "If there were a turning point in April, it was the shift from sporadic attacks and counter-attacks on the Palestinian civilian population towards the systematic mega-operation of ethnic cleansing that now followed." 1948 Arab%E2%80%93Israeli War [REDACTED] Israel Before 26 May 1948 : [REDACTED] Yishuv Paramilitary groups : After 26 May 1948 : [REDACTED] Arab League : Irregulars : [REDACTED] Arab Liberation Army Central and Jerusalem front Northern front International Massacres Biological warfare The 1948 Arab–Israeli War , also known as
2961-756: A traingular debate in the pages of The Spectator until August 4, 1961. In November 1961, Khalidi published "Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine" with details about the plan in the journal of the Middle East Forum. Khalidi wrote in 1988 that as of then the exchanges in The Spectator had never published in full in the US, and that there had not been a detailed account of Plan Dalet or previous plans in Israeli and non-Israeli writings on 1948. The intent of Plan Dalet
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#17328513603743102-555: A variety of distinct sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated their presence in Galilee and Samaria . Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men of the Army of the Holy War . Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. To counter this, the Yishuv authorities tried to supply
3243-420: Is 1,000–1,208 m), the upper Galilee region contains some distinctive flora and fauna: prickly juniper ( Juniperus oxycedrus ), Lebanese cedar ( Cedrus libani ), which grows in a small grove on Mount Meron, cyclamens , paeonias , and Rhododendron ponticum which sometimes appears on Meron. Western Galilee ( Hebrew : גליל מערבי , romanized : Galil Ma'aravi ) is a modern term referring to
3384-449: Is [גָּלִיל] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |translit= ( help ) , meaning 'district' or 'circle'. The Hebrew form used in Book of Isaiah 9:1 (or 8:23 in different Biblical versions) is in the construct state , leading to [גְּלִיל הַגּוֹיִם] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |translit= ( help ) "Galilee of the nations", which refers to gentiles who settled there at the time
3525-623: Is manifested in Deir Yassin, a pastoral and cordial village that had reached a non-aggression pact with the Hagana in Jerusalem, but was doomed to be wiped out because it was within the areas designated in Plan Dalet to be cleansed." According to historian Benny Morris , Walid Khalidi also emphasized "the connection between the Haganah's "Plan Dalet" [...] and what happened in Deir Yassin, explicitly linking
3666-458: Is subject to controversy, with some historians characterizing it as defensive, while others assert that it was an integral part of a planned strategy for the expulsion, sometimes called an ethnic cleansing , of the area's native inhabitants. Its name comes from the letter Dalet (ד), the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet , after plans named Aleph (א), Bet (ב), and Gimel (ג) were revised. In
3807-572: Is subject to much controversy, with historians on the one extreme asserting that it was defensive, and historians on the other extreme asserting that the plan aimed at maximum conquest and expulsion. According to the French historian Henry Laurens , the importance of the military dimension of plan Dalet becomes clear by comparing the operations of the Jordanian and the Egyptian armies. The ethnical homogeneity of
3948-474: Is taken the breadth of the Upper Galilee, as far as the village Baca , which divides the land of the Tyrians from it; its length is also from Meloth to Thella , a village near to Jordan. Most of Galilee consists of rocky terrain, at heights of between 500 and 700 m. Several high mountains are in the region, including Mount Tabor and Mount Meron , which have relatively low temperatures and high rainfall. As
4089-623: The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine , while the Jewish opposition developed into the 1944–1947 Jewish insurgency in Palestine . The civil war began the day after the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine on 29 November 1947 – which planned to divide the territory into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and the Special International Regime encompassing the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem . At
4230-837: The Amila tribe. The Islamization process in which began with the settlement of nomadic tribes. Michael Ehrlich suggests that during the Early Islamic period, the majority of people in the Western Galilee and Lower Galilee likely converted to Islam, while in the Eastern Galilee, the Islamization process continued for a more extended period, lasting until the Mamluk period. According to Moshe Gil, Jews in rural Galilean areas frequently succeeded in upholding community life during and for decades after
4371-508: The Army of the Holy War . Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, al-Husayni organised the blockade of the 100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem . To counter this, the Yishuv authorities tried to supply the Jews of the city with food by using convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, Al-Hussayni's tactic, sometimes called "The War of
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4512-587: The Ayyubid period, and in particular during the Mamluk period. These immigrants included Sufi preachers who were crucial in converting the locals to Islam in Safed's rural area. Jewish immigrants did, however, come to the area in waves, during the period of the destruction of Tyre and Acre in 1291 and particularly after the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492. These immigrants, who included scholars and other urban elites, turned
4653-648: The First Arab–Israeli War , followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war . The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine
4794-588: The Great Jewish Revolt , Josephus was appointed by the Jerusalem provisional government to command Galilee. The region experienced internal conflicts among cities such as Sepphoris and Tiberias, with factions opposing Josephus's authority and warring for control. Sepphoris and other strong cities attempted to remain neutral by maintaining alliances with Rome. Despite opposition, Josephus managed to secure internal peace and fortified nineteen cities in preparation for
4935-716: The Itureans to Judaism while annexing a portion of their territory. Schürer believed this information to be accurate and came to the conclusion that the "Jewish" Galilee of Jesus' day was actually inhabited by the offspring of those same Iturean converts. Other scholars have suggested that the Itureans underwent a voluntary conversion to Judaism in the Upper Galilee, or at the very least in the Eastern Upper Galilee. However, archeological information does not support either proposal, as Iturean material culture has been identified clearly in
5076-792: The Kfar Etzion massacre on 13 May by the Arab Legion led to predictions that the battle for Jerusalem would be merciless. On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel and the 1948 Palestine war entered its second phase with the intervention of the Arab state armies and the beginning of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. By September 1947, the Haganah had "10,489 rifles, 702 light machine-guns, 2,666 submachine guns, 186 medium machine-guns, 672 two-inch mortars and 92 three-inch (76 mm) mortars". In 1946, Ben-Gurion decided that
5217-564: The Mishnah at this time period represented the peak of intense cultural activity. Archaeological surveys in the Galilee have revealed that the region experienced its height of thriving settlement during this time. According to medieval Hebrew legend, Shimon bar Yochai , one of the most famed of all the tannaim , wrote the Zohar while living in Galilee. After the completion of the Mishnah, which marked
5358-602: The Negev , the east coast as far as Gaza City , and a wide strip along the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road. Israel also took control of West Jerusalem , which was meant to be part of an international zone for Jerusalem and its environs. Transjordan took control of East Jerusalem and what became known as the West Bank , annexing it the following year . The territory known today as the Gaza Strip
5499-801: The Neo-Assyrian Empire . Hiram, to reciprocate previous gifts given to David , accepted the upland plain among the Naftali Mountains and renamed it "the land of Cabul " for a time. In the Iron Age II, Galilee was part of the Kingdom of Israel , which fell to the Assyrians . Archaeological survey conducted by Zvi Gal in Lower Galilee indicates that the area became deserted following the Assyrian conquest in
5640-528: The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration . Shortly after, in 1920, the region was included in the British Mandate territory, officially a part of Mandatory Palestine from 1923. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli war , nearly the whole of Galilee came under Israel's control. A large portion of the population fled or was forced to leave, leaving dozens of entire villages empty; however, a large Israeli Arab community remained based in and near
5781-749: The Partition Plan for Palestine for ending the British Mandate and recommending the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the UN's approval of the Partition plan, the Jewish community expressed joy, while the Arab community expressed discontent. On the day after the vote, a spate of Arab attacks left at least eight Jews dead, one in Tel Aviv by sniper fire, and seven in ambushes on civilian buses that were claimed to be retaliations for
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5922-449: The United States , Yishuv agents purchased three Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, one of which bombed Cairo in July 1948, some Curtiss C-46 Commando transport planes, and dozens of half-tracks, which were repainted and defined as "agricultural equipment". In Western Europe, Haganah agents amassed fifty 65mm French mountain guns, twelve 120mm mortars, ten H-35 light tanks, and a large number of half-tracks. By mid-May or thereabouts
6063-446: The 8th century and remained so for several centuries; the local Israelite population was carried off to Assyria after 732 BCE. Yardenna Alexandre discovered minor short-lived Israelite settlements in the Naḥal Ẓippori basin, which were built by survivors of the Assyrian conquest. Elsewhere, Galilee was depopulated. But there is evidence of Assyrian presence, based on artefacts in Cana , and Konrad Schmid and Jens Schroter believe it
6204-532: The Arab Liberation Army was roundly defeated at Mishmar HaEmek in its first large-scale operation, coinciding with the loss of their Druze allies through defection. With the implementation of Plan Dalet, the Haganah, Palmach and Irgun forces began conquering mixed zones. The Palestinian Arab society was shaken as Tiberias , Haifa , Safed , Beisan , Jaffa and Acre were all captured and more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled . The British had essentially withdrawn their troops. This pushed
6345-508: The Arab areas and attacked Israeli forces and several Jewish settlements. The 10 months of fighting took place mostly on the territory of the British Mandate and in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon , interrupted by several truce periods. By the end of the war the State of Israel controlled all of the area that the UN had proposed for a Jewish state, as well as almost 60% of the area proposed for an Arab state, including Jaffa , Lydda and Ramle area, Upper Galilee , some parts of
6486-451: The Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan . In 1947, David Ben-Gurion reorganised Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and woman in the country had to receive military training. Military equipment was procured from stockpiles from the Second World War and from Czechoslovakia and was brought in Operation Balak . There is some disagreement among historians about the precise authors of Plan Dalet. According to some, it
6627-415: The Arab side, with a policy or plan for expulsion". On the intent of Plan Dalet Morris writes: "The essence of the plan was the clearing of hostile and potentially hostile forces out of the interior of the territory of the prospective Jewish State, establishing territorial continuity between the major concentrations of Jewish population and securing the future State's borders before, and in anticipation of,
6768-439: The Arab world. In Palestine, violence erupted almost immediately, feeding into a spiral of reprisals and counter-reprisals. The British refrained from intervening as tensions boiled over into a low-level conflict that quickly escalated into a full-scale civil war . From January onwards, operations became increasingly militarised, with the intervention of a number of Arab Liberation Army regiments inside Palestine, each active in
6909-464: The Borders of the State inter alia states: Plan Dalet was first implemented in the first days of April, starting with Operation Nachshon . This marked the beginning of the second stage of the war in which, according to Benny Morris, the Haganah passed from the defensive to the offensive. Nachshon's objective was lifting the blockade on Jerusalem . Fifteen hundred men from Haganah's Givati brigade and Palmach 's Harel brigade conducted sorties to free up
7050-414: The British were withdrawing). The introduction of the plan states: Later on, the plan states: According to the Israeli chief of military intelligence Yehoshafat Harkabi , Plan Dalet called for the conquest of Arab towns and villages inside and along the borders of the area allocated to the proposed Jewish State in the UN Partition Plan . According to David Tal , Ilan Pappé distinguishes between
7191-464: The Egyptian troops, though in 1838, the Druze of Galilee led another uprising . In 1834 and 1837 , major earthquakes leveled most of the towns, resulting in great loss of life. Following the 1864 Tanszimat reforms in the Ottoman Empire, the Galilee remained within Acre Sanjak , but was transferred from Sidon Eyalet to the newly formed Syria Vilayet and shortly, from 1888, became administered from Beirut Vilayet . In 1866, Galilee's first hospital,
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#17328513603747332-493: The Galileans had their unique social, political and economic matrix. In terms of ethnicity, Galileans were ethnic Judeans, which generally saw themselves also as Israelites, but could be also identified with localized characteristics, such as Sepphorean. Others argue that Galileans and Judeans were distinct people groups. Outsiders generally conflated them due to Hellenistic-Roman culture, which grouped all diverse groups in Palestine and their related diasporas as "Judean". In 4 BCE,
7473-402: The Haganah), Appendix 48, pp. 1955-60. An English translation of the text of Plan Dalet was published for the first time as an appendix to Khalidi's 1988 reprint of "Plan Dalet: Master Plan for the Conquest of Palestine" in the Journal of Palestine Studies . In this plan, the Haganah also started the transformation from an underground organization into a regular army. The reorganization included
7614-472: The Israeli narrative that the Palestinian exodus was a result of evacuation orders from Arab leaders, then espoused in English most prominently by Jon Kimche and his younger brother David Kimche . On May 21, 1961, the Irish journalist Erskine Childers published his article "The Other Exodus" in The Spectator , to which Jon Kimche responded immediately, accusing Childers of being influenced by Khalidi. Childers, Kimche, and Khalidi then argued publicly in
7755-415: The Jewish community from a rural community into an urban hub which exerted its influence well beyond the regional boundaries of Upper Galilee. During Early Ottoman era, the Galilee was governed as the Safad Sanjak , initially part of the larger administrative unit of Damascus Eyalet (1549–1660) and later as part of Sidon Eyalet (1660–1864). During the 18th century, the administrative division of Galilee
7896-408: The Jewish population. The success of the operation was assisted by the death of al-Husayni in combat. During this time, fighters from Irgun and Lehi massacred a substantial number of Palestinians at Deir Yassin . The attack was widely publicized and had a deep impact on the morale of the Palestinian population and contributed to generate the exodus of the Arab population . At the same time,
8037-520: The Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev and north of Galilee was even more critical. While the Jewish population had received strict orders requiring them to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, the Arab population was more affected by the general conditions of insecurity to which the country was exposed. Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres eastwards. This situation caused
8178-408: The Jewish settlements of Galilee , and Operation Kilshon , which created a united front around Jerusalem. The 8 of 13 operations marked with an asterisk (*) were executed outside territories allocated for a Jewish state according to the demarcations of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and before the entry of Arab regular armies into areas allotted for an Arab state. By the end of
8319-400: The Jews. His conclusions were that they had no chance of victory and that an invasion of the Arab regular armies was mandatory. The political committee nevertheless rejected these conclusions and decided to support an armed opposition to the Partition Plan excluding the participation of their regular armed forces. In April with the Palestinian defeat, the refugees coming from Palestine and
8460-449: The Nazareth Hospital , was founded under the leadership of American-Armenian missionary Dr. Kaloost Vartan , assisted by German missionary John Zeller . In the early 20th century, Galilee remained part of Acre Sanjak of Ottoman Syria. It was administered as the southernmost territory of the Beirut Vilayet . Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I , and the Armistice of Mudros , it came under British rule, as part of
8601-441: The Palestinians. According to Walid Khalidi and Ilan Pappé , its purpose was to conquer as much of Palestine and to expel as many Palestinians as possible, though according to Benny Morris there was no such intent. In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine , Pappé asserts that Plan Dalet was a "blueprint for ethnic cleansing" with the aim of reducing both rural and urban areas of Palestine. According to Yoav Gelber ,
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#17328513603748742-432: The Roads", had paid off. Almost all of Haganah's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and the Haganah had lost more than 100 troops. According to Benny Morris , the situation for those who dwelt in the Jewish settlements in the highly isolated Negev and North of Galilee was equally critical. According to Ilan Pappé, in early March, the Yishuv's security leadership did not seem to regard
8883-429: The Roman invasion; nearly half of them were uncovered by archaeologists. In 67 CE, the Roman army, led by general Vespasian , arrived in Acre. Josephus's account, The Jewish War , details the Roman campaign in Galilee , starting with the siege and capture of Gabara, followed by Jotapata (where Josephus was captured), and continuing with Tiberias, Taricheae, Gamala, Tabor, and ending in Gischala. While not all of Galilee
9024-519: The Roman period, were now predominantly inhabited by Christians or had a significant Christian population. Safrai and Liebner argue that the decline of the Jewish population and the expansion of the Christian population in the region were separate events that happened at different times. Throughout this period, religious segregation between Christian and Jewish villages endured, with few exceptions like Capernaum and perhaps Nazareth , due to their sanctity in Christian tradition. Leibner has proposed tying
9165-425: The Umayyad period. He comes to the conclusion that several Galilean Jewish communities "retained their ancient character". The Shia Fatimids conquered the region in the 10th century; a breakaway sect, venerating the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim , formed the Druze religion, centered in Mount Lebanon and partially in the Galilee. During the Crusades , Galilee was organized into the Principality of Galilee , one of
9306-565: The United States to withdraw its support for the Partition Plan, encouraging the Arab League to believe that the Palestinian Arabs, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan. However, the British decided on 7 February 1948 to support the annexation of the Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan. Although doubt took hold among Yishuv supporters, their apparent defeats were due more to their wait-and-see policy than to weakness. David Ben-Gurion reorganised Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and woman in
9447-418: The Upper and Western Galilee from Lebanon . This came in parallel to the general destabilization of Southern Lebanon , which became a scene of fierce sectarian fighting which deteriorated into the Lebanese Civil War . On the course of the war, Israel initiated Operation Litani (1979) and Operation Peace For Galilee (1982) with the stated objectives of destroying the PLO infrastructure in Lebanon, protecting
9588-658: The Yishuv had purchased from Czechoslovakia 25 Avia S-199 fighters (an inferior version of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 ), 200 heavy machine guns, 5,021 light machine guns, 24,500 rifles, and 52 million rounds of ammunition, enough to equip all units, but short of heavy arms. The airborne arms smuggling missions from Czechoslovakia were codenamed Operation Balak . The airborne smuggling missions were carried out by mostly American aviators – Jews and non-Jews – led by ex-U.S. Air Transport Command flight engineer Al Schwimmer . Schwimmer's operation also included recruiting and training fighter pilots such as Lou Lenart , commander of
9729-406: The Yishuv would probably have to defend itself against both the Palestinian Arabs and neighbouring Arab states and accordingly began a "massive, covert arms acquisition campaign in the West", and acquired many more during the first few months of hostilities. The Yishuv managed clandestinely to amass arms and military equipment abroad for transfer to Palestine once the British blockade was lifted. In
9870-467: The Yishuv's military power" and if it came to battle, the Palestinians expected to lose. When the first violent incidents broke out in Jerusalem on the 29 November, the Arab Higher Committee , well aware of their lack of armaments, had called for a three-day strike: the most militant Palestinian group in the city, consisting of 44 fighters, was furnished with 12 rifles, some handguns and a few kilograms of explosives. The effective number of Arab combatants
10011-412: The aim of expanding the Jewish state beyond the UN partition borders appeared: first to incorporate clusters of isolated Jewish settlements and later to add more territories to the state and give it defensible borders. A third and further aim that emerged among the political and military leaders after four or five months was to "reduce the size of Israel's prospective large and hostile Arab minority, seen as
10152-731: The area north of the Mount Carmel - Mount Gilboa ridge and south of the east–west section of the Litani River . It extends from the Israeli coastal plain and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea with Acre in the west, to the Jordan Rift Valley to the east; and from the Litani in the north plus a piece bordering on the Golan Heights all the way to Dan at the base of Mount Hermon in
10293-436: The beginning of a new phase in the 1948 Palestine war. The plan was a set of guidelines to take control of Mandatory Palestine, declare a Jewish state, and defend its borders and people, including the Jewish population outside of the borders, "before, and in anticipation of" the invasion by regular Arab armies. Plan Dalet specifically included gaining control of areas wherever Yishuv populations existed, including those outside
10434-580: The book was written, either by their own volition or as a result of the resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . The borders of Galilee, split into Upper Galilee and Lower Galilee , were described by Josephus in his The Jewish War : Now Phoenicia and Syria encompass about the Galilees, which are two, and called the Upper Galilee and the Lower. They are bounded toward the sun-setting, with
10575-428: The borders of the proposed Jewish state. The plan's tactics involved laying siege to Palestinian Arab villages, bombing neighbourhoods of cities, forced expulsion of their inhabitants, and setting fields and houses on fire and detonating TNT in the rubble to prevent any return. Zionist military units possessed detailed lists of neighborhoods and villages to be destroyed and their Arab inhabitants expelled. This strategy
10716-503: The borders of the territory belonging to Ptolemais , and by Carmel ; which mountain had formerly belonged to the Galileans, but now belonged to the Tyrians; to which mountain adjoins Gaba , which is called the City of Horsemen, because those horsemen that were dismissed by Herod the king dwelt therein; they are bounded on the south with Samaria and Scythopolis , as far as the river Jordan ; on
10857-660: The cities of Nazareth, Acre , Tamra , Sakhnin , and Shefa-'Amr , due to some extent to a successful rapprochement with the Druze. The kibbutzim around the Sea of Galilee were sometimes shelled by the Syrian army 's artillery until Israel seized Western Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War . During the 1970s and the early 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) launched multiple attacks on towns and villages of
10998-612: The citizens of the Galilee and supporting allied Christian Lebanese militias. Israel took over much of southern Lebanon in support of Christian Lebanese militias until 1985, when it withdrew to a narrow security buffer zone . From 1985 to 2000, Hezbollah , and earlier Amal , engaged the South Lebanon Army supported by the Israel Defense Forces , sometimes shelling Upper Galilee communities with Katyusha rockets. In May 2000, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak unilaterally withdrew IDF troops from southern Lebanon, maintaining
11139-508: The city of Sepphoris, and in either 18 CE or 19 CE, he founded the new city of Tiberias . These two cities became Galilee's largest cultural centers. They were the main centers of Greco-Roman influence, but were still predominantly Jewish. A massive gap existed between the rich and poor, but lack of uprisings suggest that taxes were not exorbitantly high and that most Galileans did not feel their livelihoods were being threatened. Late in his reign, Antipas married his half-niece Herodias , who
11280-436: The city with convoys of up to 100 armoured vehicles, but the operation became more and more impractical as the number of casualties in the relief convoys surged. By March, Al-Hussayni's tactic had paid off. Almost all of Haganah 's armoured vehicles had been destroyed, the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into the city were killed. The situation for those who dwelt in
11421-510: The coastal area, obtained by the expulsions of the Palestinians eased the halt of the Egyptian advance, while Jewish Jerusalem, located in an Arab population area, was encircled by Jordanian forces. According to The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies , whilst there may be controversy whether Plan Dalet was a centralized plan of ethnic cleansing, it could as well be a case of Haganah forces discovering that they could carry out ethnic cleansing at
11562-468: The conclusion of the tannaitic era, came the period of the amoraim . The Jerusalem Talmud , the principal work of the amoraim in Palestine, is primarily discussions and interpretations of the Mishnah, and according to academic research, most of it was edited in Tiberias . The vast majority of the amoraim named there, as well as the majority of the settlements or place names referenced, were Galileans. By
11703-695: The country had to receive military training. Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir from sympathisers in the United States, and Stalin's decision to support the Zionist cause, the Jewish representatives of Palestine were able to sign very important armament contracts in the East. Other Haganah agents recovered stockpiles from the Second World War, which helped improve the army's equipment and logistics. Operation Balak allowed arms and other equipment to be transported for
11844-451: The early Islamic period, Galilee underwent a process of Arabization and Islamization , similar to other areas in the region. Under Umayyad rule, Islamic rule was gradually consolidated in newly conquered territories, and some Muslims settled in the villages, establishing residency there. Later, under Abbasid rule, geographer al-Ya'qubi (d. 891), who referred to the region as 'Jabal al-Jalil' , noted that its inhabitants were Arabs from
11985-458: The east with Hippeae and Gadaris , and also with Ganlonitis, and the borders of the kingdom of Agrippa; its northern parts are bounded by Tyre, and the country of the Tyrians. As for that Galilee which is called the Lower, it extends in length from Tiberias to Zabulon , and of the maritime places Ptolemais is its neighbor; its breadth is from the village called Xaloth , which lies in the great plain, as far as Bersabe , from which beginning also
12126-413: The end of March, 21,000 had been conscripted. On 30 March, the call-up was extended to men and single women aged between 26 and 35. Five days later, a General Mobilization order was issued for all men under 40. By March 1948, the Yishuv had a numerical superiority, with 35,780 mobilised and deployed fighters for the Haganah , 3,000 men under Lehi and Irgun , and a few thousand armed settlers. Irgun
12267-472: The end of a series of offensives that began April 1948, in which Zionist forces had conquered cities and territories in Mandatory Palestine in preparation for the establishment of a Jewish state, Zionist leaders announced the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948. The following morning, after the termination of the British Mandate, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria , and expeditionary forces from Iraq entered Palestine. The invading forces took control of
12408-612: The end of the Palestinian Amoraic period, the impact of historical occurrences like the Christianization of the Roman Empire and of Palestine, the apparent cessation of activities of at least some of the batei midrash and the transformation of the Galilee from a densely populated Jewish area to a collection of communities surrounded by non-Jewish areas to this demographic crisis. He assumed that Christian population in Galilee
12549-455: The establishment of a Jewish state alongside an Arab one. The Arab League before partition affirmed the right to the independence of Palestine, while blocking the creation of a Palestinian government. Towards the end of 1947, the League established a military committee commanded by the retired Iraqi general Isma'il Safwat whose mission was to analyse the chance of victory of the Palestinians against
12690-681: The establishment of a Jewish state. The plan was the blueprint for Israel's military operations starting in March 1948 until the end of the war in early 1949, and so played a central role in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight known as the Nakba . The plan was requested by the Jewish Agency leader and later first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion , and developed by the Haganah and finalized on March 10, 1948. Historians describe Plan Dalet, in which Zionist forces shifted to an offensive strategy, as
12831-452: The expulsion of the inhabitants to the Haganah’s overall planning." As part of Plan Dalet, the Haganah, Palmach and Irgun captured the urban centers of Tiberias , Haifa (see Battle of Haifa ), Safed , Beisan , Jaffa , and Acre , violently expelling more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabs. The British had, at that time, essentially withdrawn their troops. The situation moved the leaders of
12972-557: The first Israeli air assault against the Arabs. Several Americans, including Schwimmer, were later prosecuted by the U.S. government for violating the Neutrality Act of 1939 . The Yishuv also had "a relatively advanced arms producing capacity", that between October 1947 and July 1948 "produced 3 million 9 mm bullets, 150,000 Mills grenades , 16,000 submachine guns ( Sten Guns) and 210 three-inch (76 mm) mortars", along with
13113-489: The first time by the end of March. Ben-Gurion invested Yigael Yadin with the responsibility to come up with a plan of offence whose timing was related to the foreseeable evacuation of British forces. This strategy, called Plan Dalet , was readied by March and implemented towards the end of April. A separate plan, Operation Nachshon , was devised to lift the siege of Jerusalem . 1500 men from Haganah's Givati brigade and Palmach 's Harel brigade conducted sorties to free up
13254-566: The following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line . Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1920 creation of the British Mandate of Palestine , and in the context of Zionism and the mass migration of European Jews to Palestine , there had been tension and conflict between Arabs, Jews, and the British. British policies dissatisfied both Arabs and Jews. Arab opposition developed into
13395-428: The formation of brigades and front commands. The stated goals included in addition to the reorganization, gaining control of the areas of the planned Jewish state as well as areas of Jewish settlements outside its borders. The control would be attained by fortifying strongholds in the surrounding areas and roads, conquering Arab villages close to Jewish settlements and occupying British bases and police stations (from which
13536-424: The general section of Plan Dalet and the operational orders given to the troops. According to Pappé the general section of the plan, which was distributed to politicians, was misguiding as to the real intentions of the Haganah. The real plan was handed down to the brigade commanders "not as vague guidelines, but as clear-cut operational orders for action". Along with the general section, "each brigade commander received
13677-465: The guidance of Ben-Gurion. It was finalised and sent to Haganah units in early March 1948. The plan consisted of a general part and operational orders for the brigades, which specified which villages should be targeted and other specific missions. The general section of the plan was also sent to the Yishuv 's political leaders. The Hebrew text of Plan Dalet was published in 1972 in volume 3, part 3 of Sefer Toldot Hahaganah ( ספר תולדות ההגנה History of
13818-457: The invasion [by Arab states]. The Haganah regarded almost all the villages as actively or potentially hostile." Benny Morris also wrote that " Nahshon heralded a shift from the defensive to the offensive and marked the beginning of the implementation of tochnit dalet (Plan D)" Morris also stated that: "The Haganah shift of strategy was decided on incrementally during the first half of April: each decision appeared to be, and in large measure was,
13959-483: The leaders of the neighbouring Arab states to intervene, but they were not fully prepared, and could not assemble sufficient forces to turn the tide. The majority of Palestinian Arab hopes lay with the Arab Legion of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I, but he had no intention of creating a Palestinian Arab-run state, since he hoped to annex as much of the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine as he could. He
14100-639: The local and regional level, as their offensive drove out large numbers of Arabs. The plan was neither understood nor used by the senior field officers as a blanket instruction for the expulsion of the Palestinians. But, in providing for the expulsion or destruction of villages that had resisted or might threaten the Yishuv, it constituted a strategic-doctrinal and carte blanche for expulsions by front, brigade, district and battalion commanders (who in each case argued military necessity) and it gave commanders, post facto, formal, persuasive cover for their actions. However, during April–June, relatively few commanders faced
14241-643: The loss of their Druze allies through defection. On April 9, paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi , supported by the Haganah and Palmach, perpetrated the Deir Yassin massacre , killing at least 107 Arab villagers, including women and children. The event was widely publicized and had a deep effect on the Arab population's morale, greatly contributing to the Palestinian expulsion and flight . Israeli historian Ilan Pappé wrote in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006) that "The systematic nature of Plan Dalet
14382-551: The major cities and villages in Galilee were entirely Jewish. During the Byzantine period, however, Galilee's Jewish population experienced a decline, while Christian settlement grew. Archaeological data indicates that in the third and fourth centuries, several Jewish sites were abandoned, and some Christian villages were established on or near these deserted locations. Certain settlements, such as Rama , Magdala , Kafr Kanna , Daburiyya , and Iksal , which were materially Jewish during
14523-579: The middle of the fourth century, the Jerusalem Talmud's compilation and editing processes abruptly came to a halt, as Talmudic scholar Yaacov Sussmann put it: "The development of the Jerusalem Talmud seems to have abruptly ceased, as if severed by a sharp and sudden blade". Demographically, during the fourth century the entire region witnessed a significant population decrease, resulting in the abandonment of several notable settlements. In approximately 320 CE, Christian bishop Epiphanius reported that all
14664-471: The moral dilemma of having to carry out the expulsion clauses. Townspeople and villagers usually left their homes before or during battle, and Haganah rarely had to decide about, or issue, expulsion orders....". In his book on the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem Israeli historian Benny Morris discusses the relevance of the idea of " population transfer " in Zionist thinking. Morris concludes that there
14805-642: The most important Crusader seigneuries. According to Moshe Gil, during the periods of Fatimid and Crusader rule, the rural Jewish population of Galilee experienced a gradual decline and flight. He supports his argument by referring to 11th-century Cairo Geniza documents related to transactions in Ramla and other areas in central Palestine, where Jews claimed to have ancestral ties to places like Gush Halav , Dalton , or 'Amuqa , suggesting that Jewish flight from Galilee occurred during that time. Sunni Muslims began to immigrate to Safed and its surroundings starting in
14946-497: The neighboring Arab states to intervene, but their preparations had not been finalised, and they could not assemble sufficient forces to turn the tide of the war. Many Palestinian hopes lay with the Arab Legion of Transjordan's monarch, King Abdullah I , but he had no intention of creating a Palestinian-run state, since he hoped to annex as much of the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine as he could. The Haganah launched Operation Yiftah and Operation Ben-Ami to secure
15087-619: The northeast, to Mount Carmel and Mount Gilboa in the south. This definition includes the plains of the Jezreel Valley north of Jenin and the Beth Shean Valley, the valley containing the Sea of Galilee , and the Hula Valley . It usually does not include Haifa 's immediate northern suburbs. By this definition it overlaps with much of the administrative Northern District of Israel and with Southern Lebanon . The region's Hebrew name
15228-422: The northern Golan Heights and Mount Hermon, and not in the Galilee, and it is clear that this area remained outside Hasmonean borders. In the early Roman period, Galilee was predominantly Jewish. Archaeological evidence from multiple sites reveals Jewish customs, including the use of limestone vessels , ritual baths for purity , and secondary burial practices. A significant wave of Jewish settlement arrived in
15369-404: The only supply that was not in shortage during the war. Locally produced explosives were also plentiful. After Israel's independence, these clandestine arms manufacturing operations were moved above ground. All of the Haganah's weapons-manufacturing was centralised and later became Israel Military Industries . In November 1947, the Haganah was an underground paramilitary force that had existed as
15510-463: The overall situation as particularly troubling, but instead was busy finalising a master plan. This situation caused the United States to withdraw their support for the Partition plan, thus encouraging the Arab League to believe that the Palestinians, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army , could put an end to partition. The British, meanwhile, decided on 7 February 1948, to support the annexation of
15651-436: The plan specified that in case of resistance, the population of conquered villages was to be expelled outside the borders of the Jewish state. If no resistance was met, the residents could stay put, under military rule. According to Morris, Plan D called for occupying the areas within the UN sponsored Jewish state, several concentrations of Jewish population outside those areas (West Jerusalem and Western Galilee), and areas along
15792-612: The pressure of their public opinion, the Arab leaders decided to invade Palestine. The Arab League gave reasons for its invasion in Palestine in the cablegram : British diplomat Alec Kirkbride wrote in his 1976 memoirs about a conversation with the Arab League's Secretary-General Azzam Pasha a week before the armies marched: "...when I asked him for his estimate of the size of the Jewish forces, [he] waved his hands and said: 'It does not matter how many there are. We will sweep them into
15933-467: The region following the Roman conquest of 63 BCE. Large towns such as Kefar Hananya , Parod , Ravid , Mashkaneh, Sabban, and Tiberias were established by the end of the first century BCE or the start of the first century CE. By the end of the first century CE, the Galilee was dotted with small towns and villages. While Josephus writes there were 204 small towns, modern scholars consider this an exaggeration. Galilee's economy under Roman rule thrived on
16074-434: The region in 1775. In 1831, the Galilee, a part of Ottoman Syria , switched hands from Ottomans to Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt until 1840. During this period, aggressive social and politic policies were introduced, which led to a violent 1834 Arab revolt . In the process of this revolt the Jewish community of Safed was greatly reduced, in the event of Safed Plunder by the rebels. The Arab rebels were subsequently defeated by
16215-712: The region's storage jars. Kefar Hananya in Upper Galilee manufactured various tableware forms, supplying markets across Galilee, the Golan Heights, the Decapolis, coastal areas, and the Beth Shean Valley. Josephus describes the Jewish population of Galilee as being nationalist and hostile to Jewish city-dwellers, making them the first target for the Romans during the Jewish-Roman wars . Bargil Pixner believes they descended from
16356-412: The roads where the invading Arab armies were expected to attack. The Yishuv perceived the peril of an Arab invasion as threatening its very existence. Having no real knowledge of the Arabs' true military capabilities, the Jews took Arab propaganda literally, preparing for the worst and reacting accordingly. The Arab League had unanimously rejected the UN partition plan and were officially opposed to
16497-538: The route to the city between 5 and 20 April. Both sides acted offensively in defiance of the Partition Plan, which foresaw Jerusalem as a corpus separatum , under neither Jewish nor Arab jurisdiction. The Arabs did not accept the Plan, while the Jews were determined to oppose the internationalisation of the city, and secure it as part of the Jewish state. The operation was successful, and enough foodstuffs to last two months were trucked into Jerusalem for distribution to
16638-430: The route to the city between April 5–20. The operation was successful, and enough foodstuffs to last 2 months were trucked into Jerusalem for distribution to the Jewish population. The success of the operation was assisted by the death of Al-Hussayni in combat. From April 4–14, the first large-scale operation of the Arab Liberation Army ended in a debacle, having been roundly defeated at Mishmar HaEmek , coinciding with
16779-573: The sea.'" Galilee Galilee ( / ˈ ɡ æ l ɪ l iː / ; Hebrew : הַגָּלִיל , romanized : hagGālīl ; Latin : Galilaea ; Arabic : الجليل , romanized : al-jalīl ) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon . Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee ( הגליל העליון , ha-galil ha-elyon ; الجليل الأعلى , al-jalīl al-aʾlā ) and Lower Galilee ( גליל תחתון , galil tahton ; الجليل الأسفل , al-jalīl al-asfal ). Galilee refers to all of
16920-457: The summer of 1937, the commander of their forces in the Tel Aviv area, Elimelech Slikowitz (nicknamed Avnir) received an order from Ben-Gurion , according to the official history of the Haganah . Ben-Gurion, anticipating an eventual British withdrawal from the country after the Peel Report , asked Avnir to prepare a plan for the military conquest of the whole of Palestine. This Avnir Plan provided
17061-548: The three years following the war, including 260,000 from the surrounding Arab states . On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, and the City of Jerusalem. The General Assembly resolution on Partition was greeted with overwhelming joy in Jewish communities and widespread outrage in
17202-540: The underground militias but would provide valuable military experience during the war. Walid Khalidi says the Yishuv had the additional forces of the Jewish Settlement Police, numbering some 12,000, the Gadna Youth Battalions, and the armed settlers. Few of the units had been trained by December 1947. On 5 December 1947, conscription was instituted for all men and women aged between 17 and 25 and by
17343-692: The urging of Herodias , Antipas went to Rome to request that he be elevated from the status of tetrarch to the status of king. The Romans found him guilty of storing arms, so he was removed from power and exiled, ending his forty-three-year reign. During the Great Revolt (66–73 CE), a Jewish mob destroyed Herod Antipas's palace. Overall, Galilee under Antipas's rule was marked by significant demographic instability. Diseases like malaria were rampant, internal migration between urban and rural areas were frequent and women generally gave birth at young ages while married to older men. Birth control, including infanticide ,
17484-601: The war, approximately 800,000 Palestinians were displaced in total, and hundreds of villages were destroyed . In his article "The Fall of Haifa" in the December 1959 issue of the Middle East Forum , the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi placed the Battle of Haifa within a new Zionist offensive and discernible shift in strategy, without naming the offensive. The scholarship of Khalidi and his colleagues at this time responded to
17625-515: The war. Yishuv 's aims evolved during the war. Mobilisation for a total war was organised. Initially, the aim was "simple and modest": to survive the assaults of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states. "The Zionist leaders deeply, genuinely, feared a Middle Eastern reenactment of the Holocaust , which had just ended; the Arabs' public rhetoric reinforced these fears". As the war progressed,
17766-453: The western part of the Upper Galilee and its shore, and usually also the northwestern part of the Lower Galilee, mostly overlapping with Acre sub-district. Galilee Panhandle is a common term referring to the "panhandle" in the east that extends to the north, where Lebanon is to the west, and includes Hula Valley and Ramot Naftali mountains of the Upper Galilee. According to the Bible , Galilee
17907-495: Was occupied by Egypt . Expulsions of Palestinians , which had begun during the civil war, continued during the Arab-Israeli war. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in multiple massacres , such as occurred in the expulsions from Lydda and Ramle . These events are known today as the Nakba ( Arabic for "the catastrophe") and were the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem . A similar number of Jews moved to Israel during
18048-410: Was Zionist support for transfer "in the 1930s and early 1940s", and that while this "transfer thinking" had conditioned the Yishuv's hearts and minds to accept it as natural and inevitable when it happened, it "was not tantamount to pre-planning, and did not issue in the production of a policy or master plan of expulsion; the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 War, which was initiated by
18189-499: Was a plan worked out by the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary group and the forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, in autumn 1947 to spring 1948, which was sent to Haganah units in early March 1948. The intent of Plan Dalet is subject to much controversy, with historians on the one extreme asserting that it was entirely defensive, and historians on the other extreme asserting that the plan aimed at maximum conquest and expulsion of
18330-504: Was already married to one of her other uncles. His wife, whom he divorced, fled to her father Aretas , an Arab king, who invaded Galilee and defeated Antipas's troops before withdrawing. Both Josephus and the Gospel of Mark record that the itinerant preacher John the Baptist criticized Antipas over his marriage, and Antipas consequently had him imprisoned and then beheaded . In around 39 CE, at
18471-443: Was decorated with animal carvings, which many Jews regarded as a transgression against the law prohibiting idols, his coins bore only agricultural designs, which his subjects deemed acceptable. In general, Antipas was a capable ruler. Josephus does not record any instance of his use of force to put down an uprising and he had a long, prosperous reign. However, many Jews probably resented him as not sufficiently devout. Antipas rebuilt
18612-610: Was devastated, the conquered cities were razed, and many inhabitants were sold into slavery. Judaism reached its political and cultural zenith in the Galilee during the late second and early third century CE. According to rabbinic sources, Judah ha-Nasi 's political leadership was at its strongest in relation to the Jewish community in Syria Palaestina , the Diaspora, and the Roman Authorities during this time. Judah's redaction of
18753-547: Was eventually absorbed into the Jewish Defence Army. The activities of Irgun was monitored by MI5 , which found that Irgun was "involved or implicated in numerous acts of terrorism" during the end years of the British mandate in Palestine such as the attacks on trains and the kidnapping of British servicemen. According to Benny Morris , by the end of 1947, the Palestinians already "had a healthy and demoralising respect for
18894-462: Was likely that Assyrians settled in the region. Up until the end of the Hellenistic period and before the Hasmonean conquest, the Galilee was sparsely populated, with the majority of its inhabitants concentrated in large fortified centers on the edges of the western and central valleys. Based on archeological evidence from Tel Anafa , Kedesh , and ash-Shuhara , the Upper Galilee was then home to
19035-436: Was listed as growing to 12,000 by some historians while others calculate an eventual total Arab strength of approximately 23,500 troops, and with this being more of less or roughly equal to that of the Yishuv. However, as Israel mobilised most of its most able citizens during the war while the Arab troops were only a small percentage of its far greater population, the strength of the Yishuv grew steadily and dramatically during
19176-586: Was named by the Israelites and was the tribal region of Naphthali and Dan, at times overlapping the Tribe of Asher 's land. Normally, Galilee is just referred to as "Naphthali". 1 Kings 9 states that Solomon rewarded his Phoenician ally, King Hiram I of Sidon , with twenty cities in the land of Galilee, which would then have been either settled by foreigners during and after the reign of Hiram or by those who had been forcibly deported there by later conquerors such as
19317-483: Was not composed of Jews who converted to Christianity. This is supported by the fact that trustworthy historical records, which mention Jewish conversion to Christianity in Byzantine Palestine, refer to individual cases rather than entire villages, unlike the records from the western part of the empire. Eastern Galilee retained a Jewish majority until at least the seventh century. Over time, this area experienced
19458-458: Was not practiced. Many young men, especially marginal villagers, migrated to urban areas to find wives or alternatively, employment. Finding wives was presumed to be competitive since widows often refused to marry past the age of 30 compared to widowers. According to Jonathan L. Reed, this can provide insight on the tropes of New Testament literature, such as miraculous healings and the itinerant lifestyle of Jesus and his disciples. In 66 CE, during
19599-404: Was playing a double game, being just as much in contact with the Jewish authorities as with the Arab League. In preparation for the offensive, Haganah successfully launched Operations Yiftah and Ben-'Ami to secure the Jewish settlements of Galilee , and Operation Kilshon , which created a united front around Jerusalem. The inconclusive meeting between Golda Meir and Abdullah I, followed by
19740-676: Was renamed to Acre Sanjak , and the Eyalet itself became centered in Acre, factually becoming the Acre Eyalet between 1775 and 1841. The Jewish population of Galilee increased significantly following their expulsion from Spain and welcome from the Ottoman Empire . The community for a time made Safed an international center of cloth weaving and manufacturing, as well as a key site for Jewish learning. Today it remains one of Judaism's four holy cities and
19881-405: Was the result of the analysis of Yigael Yadin , at that time the temporary head of the Haganah, after Ben-Gurion invested him with the responsibility to come up with a plan in preparation for the announced intervention of the Arab states. According to Ilan Pappé the plan was conceived by the "consultancy", a group of about a dozen military and security figures and specialists on Arab affairs, under
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