Operation Dekel

The Ten Days of fighting opened on July 9, 1948, after Arab governments rejected a proposed extension of the first truce brokered by UN mediator Count Bernadotte.[1] The period represented a renewed push by Israeli forces on multiple fronts before a general cease-fire took effect on July 18.[1]

In the northern sector, Lebanese forces and elements of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) had earlier taken control of Nazareth and portions of the Lower Galilee.[2] A Jewish Agency educational account describes Israeli forces capturing Nazareth and clearing the Lower Galilee between Haifa and Tiberias, providing regional context for the campaign.[3] Operation Dekel was the principal Israeli offensive assigned to the northern sector during the Ten Days interval.[4]

The operation was built around the 7th Brigade as the main assault force, with a battalion drawn from the Carmeli Brigade and supporting elements from the Golani Brigade.[4] The stated objective was the capture of Nazareth, Galilee's largest urban concentration of Arab Christians, whose fall the sources identify as the operation's defining goal.[4][5]

The opposing force was the Arab Liberation Army under commander Fawzi al-Qawuqji, whose main strength was concentrated northeast of Nazareth near Sejra and whose volunteers also garrisoned the city itself.[6][4] By one account, the city was defended by approximately 500 ALA volunteers under a local commander named Madlul Bek.[7]

Humphries's chronology lists villages captured in Western Galilee between July 8 and 14, including Amqa, Kuweikat, Kafr Yasif, Abu Sinan, Julis, al-Makr, and Shafa 'Amr.[8] Aircraft participated in operations against villages in Western and Lower Galilee from July 9 onward.[8] After taking Arab positions between the coast and the foothills southeast of Acre, the main brigade column attacked Shefaram on July 14.[4]

On July 14, Shafa Amr, east of Haifa, was captured and became the jumping-off point for the advance southeast toward Nazareth.[1] On July 15, Israeli forces captured Safiriya — identified as Nazareth's water source — and also took Zippori after stubborn fighting.[1][4] Simultaneously, Israeli troops at Sejra, northeast of Nazareth, routed Qawuqji's forces and moved southwest to capture Ein Mhil.[1]

A small Golani unit approached Nazareth from the Jezreel Valley during this phase, giving the impression that Qawuqji was also threatened from the south and contributing to panic among the city's population.[6] As the main 7th Brigade column advanced toward the city, Nazareth's commander sent an armored-car unit to block the approach; the column continued forward while firing.[4] On the evening of July 16, the forces advancing from the Shafa Amr direction and from Sejra converged on Nazareth, and the city surrendered.[1][6] Qawuqji and most of his forces escaped north into the mountains through routes that Israeli troops had not yet sealed.[4]

The second phase, from July 15 to 18, saw the 7th Brigade capture additional villages including Ar Ruweis, al-Damun, Kabul, Sha'b, Tamra, Mi'ar, Kawkab, and Kafr Manda, as well as Nazareth and nearby localities such as Kafr Kanna, Ar-Reina, and Tur'an.[8] A general cease-fire took effect on July 18, ending the Ten Days of fighting.[1]

The campaign's result was described as clearing the entire belt of Lower Galilee from Haifa Bay to Lake Kinneret.[4][1] Operation Dekel brought western, southern, and parts of southeastern Galilee — including Sepphoris and Nazareth — under Israeli control.[9] It is distinguished from Operation Hiram, launched in October 1948, which brought the remaining portions of Galilee corresponding to the former British Mandate borders under Israeli control.[9]

Nazareth's surrender involved little bloodshed or damage to the city.[5] Ben Dunkelman, who received the surrender document, provided assurances that civilians who had not participated in hostilities would not be harmed.[10][11] The negotiated agreement avoided the potential international fallout of a confrontation in the region's largest urban concentration of Arab Christians.[5]

The day after Nazareth's surrender, on July 17, Laskov gave Dunkelman an order directing him to evacuate the city's civilian population. Dunkelman refused, citing the promise he had made in the surrender agreement to safeguard the town's civilians.[11] He later wrote that his refusal gave the high command time to reconsider and that the city's Arab residents remained.[11]

Accounts of how that outcome was reached differ across sources. Flapan, drawing on a 1980 interview with Dunkelman published in Haolam Hazeh, attributes the evacuation order to Chaim Laskov.[11] Pappe attributes a total-eviction order to Moshe Carmel, whom he identifies as the operation's senior commander, and argues that Ben-Gurion instructed Carmel to retract it; Pappe reports that Ben-Gurion's diary estimated the population covered at 16,000, including 10,000 Christians.[7] Humphries's chronology, by contrast, states that Laskov had orders to exercise restraint and that Nazareth was spared mass expulsion.[8] A handwritten telegram from Ben-Gurion reading "Do not remove people from Nazareth" was later reported to have been found.[10] The precise sequence of orders and the ultimate reason the population remained are disputed across these accounts.

Sources frame Operation Dekel's territorial consequences differently. Britannica states that the northern campaign took parts of Galilee allocated to a proposed Arab state under the UN partition plan, while the broader allocation of much of Galilee, including Nazareth, is also described by Encyclopedia.com.[5][9] The National Library of Israel presents Nazareth's entry into Israeli sovereignty under the heading "Occupation of Nazareth," rather than surrender.[12] The Israel Yearbook uses the language of surrender, reflecting a different framing of the same event.[1]

A Begin-Sadat Center article recounts Adel Manna's argument that a policy of expulsion was suspended when Nazareth and its vicinity fell but resumed later in other parts of Galilee west of Nazareth; the article disputes Manna's broader interpretation.[13] Humphries's chronology alleges that Muslim communities bore the greater burden of displacement during the operation, while Christian communities were generally not expelled. It also reports that Ma'lul and al-Mujeidil were captured, their residents removed, and the villages largely demolished, with churches and a mosque left standing.[8] These accounts differ in emphasis and are presented as attributed interpretations rather than uncontested descriptions.