By April 28, 2008 Read More →

‘Operation Broom’ Sweeps Arab Legions from Galilee, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, May 28, 1948.

'Operation Broom'Click here to view the original article.

The following account of the Israeli “Operation Broom,” in which the Arabs were swept from Northern Galilee, was written after a tour of the northern front, visits to three main Jewish headquarters there and talks with the commander of the campaign.

By JAMES M. LONG Associated Press Staff Writer

TEL AVIV, May 27-In two weeks the Israel army has swept exposed Northern Galilee clear of Arabs in an operation called “the Broom.”

Syrian and Lebanese invasion drives have been beaten back by five Jewish counter-thrusts across the frontiers into the Arabs’ territory.

The strategy of these cross-frontier raids was to put the Arab armies on the defensive and smash their invasion bases.

ARAB AREA HELD

The result has been that in the north, foreign armed forces now occupy only a strip of Jewish territory two miles long and a few hundred yards deep. The Jewish forces hold all the rest. Meanwhile, they have occupied Western Galilee, which the United Nations partition plan had mapped out as an Arab area.

The forces which did this had no artillery heavier than mortars and for the most part were tough, trained youngsters of Palmach, the shock troops of Haganah. Most are boys of 18 to 20. Jewish girls fight in the line with them.

(United Press Correspondent Eliav Simon reported that on a tour Thursday “from Eel Aviv to the Lebanese border and back along the Jordan-longest single front in the Holy Land war-I found the Israel border intact. I did not see a single live Arab soldier on Israel territory. Indeed, I saw few Arab civilians.

ARABS DRIVEN BACK

(“Haganah has driven back, at least temporarily, the regular armies of Syria, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan and Iraq.

(“Jordan Valley villages, which only a few days ago bristled with concentrations of Arab armies, were cleared today (Thursday). Arab gun positions are, in most cases, well beyond Israel’s border.

(“One of the few exceptions is the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee. When I arrived at Deganya early today, I was ordered to black out the lights of my car because ‘the enemy is only 1.3 miles away.’

(“further to the north I found the city of Safad, which commands the upper Galilee, firmly in Jewish hands.”)

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