The Yehiam convoy attack occurred on March 27, 1948, during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. A

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

convoy had been sent from

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

to reinforce and re-supply the

kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Yehiam Yehiam () is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located at the western Upper Galilee, eight miles east of the coastal town of Nahariya and 14 miles south-east of the border with Lebanon it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. I ...

which was under attack by Arab forces. The convoy was ambushed and 47 Haganah personnel were killed.

Background

Ben Ami Pachter (born 1919) planned to lead a convoy on 21 March 1948, from

Kiryat Haim Kiryat Haim ( ) is a neighborhood of Haifa. It is considered part of the Krayot cluster in the northern part of metropolitan Haifa. In 2008, Kiryat Haim had a population of just under 27,000. Kiryat Haim is within the municipal borders of ...

near

because supplies were short and the defenders of Kibbutz Yehiam were running out of ammunition. The 1947

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations to partition Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. Drafted by the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) on 3 September 1947, the Pl ...

put Yehi'am within the limits of the Arab state rather than the Jewish one. The original date had to be postponed as word reached that many enemy troops were deployed along the route.

Attack

On 27 March 1948, seven trucks, loaded with supplies and personnel, set off. Obstacles in the way forced the convoy to proceed slowly. As the convoy neared

al-Kabri Al-Kabri () was a Palestinian Arab town in the Galilee located northeast of Acre. It was captured by the Haganah 21 May 1948, a week after the State of Israel was declared. In 1945, it had a population of 1,530Khalidi, 1992, p. 19 and a total a ...

, the convoy's seven trucks were ambushed. From both sides of the road, the bushes exploded with bullets. Ben Ami Pachter, who was in the lead car, shouted to those behind that it was an ambush and that they should get out any way they could. After giving the warning, he was struck in the head by a bullet. The armoured car, with his body and others who were wounded, reached Yehiam shortly afterwards. ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

'' published an account of the convoy ambush:

The second ambush occurred at Kabri, near Naharia, seven miles north of Acre. Here the bodies of 42 Jews were found near five burnt out lorries. It is stated that in this action a column of six Jewish lorries were ambushed by 250 Arabs who were armed with rifles, two inch mortars, and light machine guns. The column, escorted by an armoured car, was attacked an hour before sunset on Saturday night. A British flying column was sent to relieve the Jews but failed to reach them, it is reported. British artillery then opened fire with 12-lb and 25-lb high-explosive shells, and the Arabs withdrew.''The Scotsman'', Monday 29 March 1948. Reporter: Eric Downton

In the ambush, 47 Haganah members and six Arabs were killed. Serious allegations were made against the

Carmeli Brigade 2nd "Carmeli" Brigade (Hebrew: חטיבת כרמלי, Hativat Carmeli, former 165th Brigade) is a reserve infantry brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, part of the Northern Command. Today the brigade consists of four battalions, including one ...

commander that he had not rushed to the aid of the Yehiam convoy.

Aftermath

During the second phase of

Operation Ben Ami Operation Ben-Ami () was one of the last operations launched by the Haganah before the end of the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate. The first phase of this operation was the capture of Acre, Israel, Acre. A week later four villages east and n ...

, the Arab siege of Yehi'am was lifted and the first retaliatory attack was carried out against al-Kabri, Umm al-Faraj and al-Nahr, where the commander gave orders “To attack with the aim of capturing the villages of

Umm al-Faraj Umm al-Faraj (, known to the Crusaders as La Fierge), was a Palestinian village, depopulated in 1948. Location The village was situated on a flat spot in the Acre plain, northeast of Acre.Khalidi, 1992, p. 34 History Archaeological remains fro ...

and

al-Nahr al-Nahr (), was a Palestinian village northeast of Acre. It was depopulated in May 1948 after a military assault carried out by the Carmeli Brigade as part of the Israel Defense Forces's Operation Ben-Ami. Immediately after the assault, the v ...

, to kill the men ndto destroy and set fire to the villages.” During

Operation Dekel Operation Dekel (), was the largest offensive by Israeli forces in the north of Palestine after the first truce of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was carried out by the 7th Armoured Brigade led by Canadian volunteer Ben Dunkelman (called B ...

, the 7th Brigade and 21st Battalion of the

carried out an attack on Kuweikat on 9 July 1948, believing that some of the inhabitants had taken part in the attack on the Yehi'am convoy. The barrage was particularly heavy. The handful of Kuweikat villagers (mostly elderly) who had stayed put when the village fell were subsequently expelled to the neighbouring Druze village of Abu Sinan. The

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

village refused to give most of the Kuweikat villagers shelter. Subsequently the Kuweikat villagers moved to Upper Galilee and

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

Gallery

File:Yechiam Convoy Memorial (12).JPG, Yehiam convoy memorial File:PikiWiki Israel 5220 armoured bus in yechiam convoy memorial sitr.jpg, Armored bus Yehiam Convoy memorial. File:PikiWiki Israel 5224 yechiam convoy memorial.jpg, Yehiam convoy memorial. File:Yechiam Convoy Memorial (11).JPG, Yehiam Convoy memorial File:Yehiam4.JPG, Yehiam Convoy memorial File:משוריין 1.jpg, Yehiam Convoy memorial File:משוריין 2.jpg, Yehiam Convoy memorial File:שמות הנופלים יחיעם.jpg, Yehiam Convoy memorial

References

Bibliography

* Benvenisti, Meron (2000):
Sacred Landscape: Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948
'. University of California Press. , ( page 178(?)
p.138
ff, ) *

External links

* http://w3.kfar-olami.org.il/reed/resources/landmark/history/convoy.htm {{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110715155731/http://w3.kfar-olami.org.il/reed/resources/landmark/history/convoy.htm , date=2011-07-15 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine 1948 in Mandatory Palestine Ambushes of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict Haganah March 1948 in Asia