At one point, Saladin specified the placement of five trebuchets, mandating that they be assembled and in place by the morning.
[1][3] A letter written while the siege was ongoing by the Hospitaller provisor Hermengar to Duke Leopold V of Austria records the Hospitaller's "fear for the Templars' castle of Safad [since] we do not know how long they can endure continual sieges and life-threatening hardships.
In an incident recorded by Ibn al-Athīr, two Hospitallers were captured and sentenced to be executed by Saladin.
One of them expressed shock at the sentence in terms flattering to the sultan, who then spared their lives and imprisoned them instead.
It was the exhaustion of their supplies and not the attacks on the walls that induced the Templar garrison to sue for peace on 30 November.