The preceding events consisted of an aerial bombardment, followed by small-scale Israeli harassment of the Egyptian lines, and later a ground assault (Operation Pleshet).

Prior to the founding of the State of Israel, the Yishuv leadership anticipated an attack by regular Arab armies, of which Egypt's was the strongest in terms of manpower, arms and equipment.

[5] As such, Plan Dalet took stopping a potential Egyptian attack into account, and the Isdud Bridge over the Lakhish River was blown up as part of Operation Barak on May 12.

[11] Following-up his victory in the Battle of Yad Mordechai on May 23–24, al-Mwawi pushed north along the coast, bypassing the relatively well-defended Israeli village of Nitzanim.

[10] On the afternoon of May 29, 1948, the observation post in Nitzanim spotted an Egyptian column, including tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and artillery moving north up the coastal road.

[16] On May 28,[19] Czech technicians at the Ekron Airbase finished assembling four Avia S-199 planes (a Messerschmitt variant) brought from Czechoslovakia, which were meant to harass the Egyptian air force base at El Arish, thus forming the IDF's first fighter squadron.

[21] The Egyptian army unleashed its full anti-aircraft arsenal and hit Alon's plane, but he managed to crash-land unharmed back at Ekron at 20:05, performing a ground loop.

[19] A report by Dan Tolkovsky, the Israeli Air Force operations officer at the time, stated that Cohen likely attempted to land at the Hatzor Airbase instead of Ekron, where eyewitnesses saw a burning plane crashing in the distance.

[24] In his book In the Fields of Philistia, Uri Avnery, who participated in the battles, wrote of the harassment operation that during those days the Egyptians were fearing an Israeli attack and were firing in all directions and launching flares in hopes of discovering their enemy.

These combined forces were tasked with the mission of capturing the Arab Yibna (May 31), although the attack never materialized because the battalion took off completely unprepared, lost its way, and returned to its starting position.

This was a significant blow to the troops' morale, especially because before the operation, Abba Kovner, the culture officer of Givati, made a speech claiming that the attack would be an historic moment when the IDF would annihilate the Egyptian forces.

[30] Shraga Gafni, in his book The Good Sapper Alex, and Uri Avnery in In the Fields of Philistia, provided excerpts from the speech:[31][32] Tonight for the first time you will hear the wrath of our airplanes and the thunder of our cannons ... because the goal is not to capture a single village or territory, but to destroy the Egyptian column ...

... And the opinions varied: some claimed, that tomorrow a Hebrew airplane would be able to fly over Ashdod easily, because it would fall into our hands, and others prayed for a similar fate – to dip in the fire and escape alive.

לא עברו דקות ספורות והשמים האדומים בשל שקיעת השמש האדימו, פי כמה, מפגזי התותחים הנגד־מטוסיים המוצבים באיזור אשדוד שהציפו את הרקיע בדרכם אחרי אוירון זה.

אש עצומה יש למצרים' אמרו החברים ונשמו לרוחה כשראו את אוירוננו היתום מצליח להסתלק בשלום.

Zur decided to regroup in the wadi and ordered Aryeh Kotzer's 1st Company to stay and engage the Egyptians at the spot where they were originally discovered and assault the pillbox there, while the rest of the forces would try a turning movement.

In complete darkness, the 1st Company made its way south through the wadi hoping to avoid enemy fire from superior positions and weapons until they were close enough to respond.

Kotzer ordered the machine gunners to climb to the east bank of the wadi to provide cover for a counterattack, and this move also led to Israeli casualties.

[39] Even though some of his soldiers came within 60 meters of the pillbox,[39] after 19 of them (over a third) were killed and the sun began rising in the horizon, Kotzer decided to retreat, unable to receive official permission due to communication problems.

רגע הפנה עוד מבטו לואדי, להיפרד כביכול מחבריו־פקודיו, ואחר פנה לרוץ בעקבותינו Zur's maneuver sent Israel's forces into unknown territory, and they encountered an Egyptian entrenchment that caught them unawares.

Approximately at noon, Zur's men met with Dromi and Harpaz, and the working communication device was used to summon vehicles to take the soldiers to Gan Yavne.

[43] Nahum Sarig, the Negev Brigade commander, later wrote that the lack of intelligence on the enemy prevented the Israeli force from continuing its assault, while the Egyptians had time to regroup.

[43] Since the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine line ran between Isdud and Yibna, the outcome of the battle meant that on the coastal strip, the Egyptians had failed to cross over into territory assigned to the State of Israel.

[52] Even though in his 1955 book Egypt's Destiny, Naguib wrote that his brigade's successful stand was a glorious victory with few consequences, estimating 450 Israeli dead (out of a perceived 4,000 attackers),[3] a logbook captured by Israel during the war revealed that he was extremely worried about the future fate of his forces.

He requested immediate assistance, including air support to determine the location of the Israeli cannons, a medevac unit, reinforcements, munitions and communication wires.

[15] In 1958, Major General Yitzhak Rabin addressed the issue; he felt that the Egyptian stop at Isdud was the result of technical difficulties, following fifteen days of continuous movement, including battles along the way.

Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari wrote that while the Egyptians publicly declared that the target was Tel Aviv, they never actually meant to advance farther than their Isdud fortifications.

Bahjat Abu-Gharbiyeh, one of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni's deputies and commander of the Bayt Jibrin area, wrote that the Egyptians never had a clear plan, because their leadership were not really interested in a war.

Because the Egyptian command would be chasing Zionist gangs, it decided to be content with separating the Negev from the other parts of the country.Israeli historian David Tal agreed with this view; Yoav Gelber, when asked about this, commented that the significance of the attack, along with two other major tactical failures—Latrun and Jenin—was in the fact that the initiative passed to the Israeli side, and the Arabs conducted only small assaults after these operations.

[4] In his book 1948, New Historian Benny Morris also disagrees with the traditional Israeli view, and states that portraying the operation as the catalyst for the Egyptian halt is a mistake.