Haganah victory Haganah Palestinian Arab irregulars Military engagements Massacres and civilian attacks 1948 Arab–Israeli War Southern front Central and Jerusalem front Northern front International Massacres Biological warfare The Battle of Haifa, also known as the Fall of Haifa, and called by the Jewish forces Operation Bi'ur Hametz (Hebrew: מבצע ביעור חמץ "Passover Cleansing"),[2][3] was a Haganah operation carried out on 21–22 April 1948 and a major event in the final stages of the civil war in Palestine, leading up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Having been allocated to a Jewish state under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the leadership of the Yishuv considered it of vital importance.

With the outbreak of the 1947-1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, Haifa's Arab population was subject to acts of terrorism by the Irgun and Haganah,[7] and many Palestinians began to flee the city.

On 17 March 1948 Mohammad bin Hammad Al Huneiti, commander of the town's Arab militia, was killed in an ambush of a convoy bringing 15 tons of arms and explosives.

According to Jon Kimche the Haganah had a highly placed informer and were able to intercept nine of eleven Palestinian Arab arms convoys into Haifa.

[citation needed] Izz al-Din organised several operations against the Jewish community, including detonating a truck-load of explosives near the flour mills.

[16][non-primary source needed] On 18 April 1948, Major-General Hugh Stockwell, British Commanding Officer, Northern sector, Haifa, summoned a representative of the Jewish Agency to his headquarters.

Stockwell relayed his intention to withdraw the British forces from the borders and no-man's-land zones in Haifa and that the evacuation would be completed by 20 April.

The Haganah broadcasts called on the populace to 'evacuate the women, the children and the old immediately, and send them to a safe haven'... Jewish tactics in the battle were designed to stun and quickly overpower opposition; demoralisation was a primary aim.

Prior to the main thrust from the higher ground of the Jewish neighbourhood, Hadar HaCarmel, the Arab Muslim neighborhood of Khalisa came under mortar bombardment.

The Jews had complete control of the Khamra square and Stanton Street and were firing from positions in the Suq (market) area.

[23][non-primary source needed] The rest of the city was in the hands of the Carmeli Brigade of the Haganah, commanded by Moshe Carmel.

Possible reasons given by Morris include clearing the way for the Jordanian Arab Legion's impending entry into the war and avoiding the population being used as hostages.

[25] This is disputed by historian Walid Khalidi who writes that "the Zionist/Israeli claim that the exodus of Haifa’s civilian population was [...] in response to specific orders to that effect from the Palestinian leadership, is entirely without foundation."

He described "the mass exodus of Haifa's Arab population" as "the spontaneous reaction to the ruthless combination of terror and psychological warfare tactics adopted by the Haganah during the attack.

He instituted a policy of collecting anything the army could use and storing it in warehouses, with the rest distributed among Jewish agricultural settlements.

Historian Saleh Abdel Jawad writes that "After the fall of Haifa, the Haganah continued to bombard civilian gatherings, especially near the port."

[34] In July the remaining Palestinians were displaced from their homes and concentrated primarily in the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood in a process of ghettoization.

[35][36][37] A systematic destruction of what had been Arab housing was implemented in certain areas by Haifa's Technical and Urban Development departments in cooperation with the IDF's city commander Ya'akov Lublini.