Operation Nahshon: A military operation during the 1948 Palestine War to lift the siege of Jerusalem, clear the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, blocked by Palestinian Arabs, and supply supplies and weapons to the isolated Jewish communities in Jerusalem. Nahshon was the name given to the Haganah’s first major military operation and constituted the first phase of Plan Dalet, a series of guidelines for taking control of the territories assigned to Palestinian Jews by the UN in the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine, to defend its borders and the population within them, including Palestinian Jews outside them, and to forestall the feared intervention of the surrounding Arab powers on behalf of the Muslim and Christian Arabs. Plan Dalet was drawn up to conquer Arab towns and villages within and outside the area assigned to the Jewish state by the UN Partition Plan for Palestine. In the event of resistance, the Arabs in the conquered villages were to be expelled beyond the borders of the Jewish state. If no resistance was encountered, the Arab residents could remain under Jewish military rule. Operation Nahshon was conducted by the Haganah’s Givati Brigade and the Palmach’s Harel Brigade.
