A final attack was launched on May 23, in which the Egyptians succeeded in capturing part of Yad Mordechai, following which the Israeli defenders withdrew.

[4] The kibbutz residents, aided by twenty Haganah fighters, imposed a five-day delay on the Egyptians.

[4] Yad Mordechai is a small kibbutz in southern Israel, founded in the 1930s and renamed in 1943 after Mordechaj Anielewicz, the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The kibbutz, perched on a hill, dominated the coastal road midway between Gaza and Majdal (today Ashkelon).

Egypt had dispatched an expeditionary force of around 10,000 men under the command of Major General Ahmad Ali al-Mwawi to Palestine in April 1948.

That night the Palmach sent in a platoon of reinforcements, including six deserters from the British military, with another PIAT and three machine guns.

The Israeli withdrawal was unknown to the Egyptians and the following day, they opened up with a four-hour artillery barrage on the now empty kibbutz.