The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , Plugot Maḥatz, "Strike Phalanges/Companies") was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the main paramilitary organization of the Yishuv (pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine) during the period of the British Mandate. The Palmach was established in May 1941. By the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it consisted of over 2,000 men and women in three fighting brigades and auxiliary aerial, naval and intelligence units. With the creation of the Israel Defense Forces, the three Palmach Brigades were disbanded. This and political reasons compelled many of the senior Palmach officers to resign in 1950.
The Palmach contributed significantly to Israeli culture and ethos, well beyond its military contribution. Its members formed the backbone of the Israel Defense Forces high command for many years, and were prominent in Israeli politics, literature and culture.
Establishment
The Palmach was established by the Haganah High Command in May 1941. Its aim was to defend the Palestinian Jewish community against two potential threats. Firstly the occupation of Palestine by the Axis in the event of their victory over the British in North Africa. Secondly, if the British army were to retreat from Palestine, Jewish settlements might come under attack from the Arab population. Yitzhak Sadeh was named as Palmach commander.Yigal Allon, Shield of David, , 1970. p. 117 Initially the group consisted of around one hundred men. In the early summer of 1941 the British military authorities agreed to joint operations against Vichy French forces in Lebanon and Syria. The first action was a sabotage mission (Operation Boatswain) against oil installations at Tripoli, Lebanon.Stephen Russell Cox (2015) Britain and the origin of Israeli Special Operations: SOE and PALMACH during the Second World War, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 8:1, 60-78, DOI:10.1080/17467586.2014.964741 Twenty-three Palmach members and a British liaison officer set out by sea but were never heard of again.Allon, pp. 118, 119.
Palmach commandos were utilized for the Syria–Lebanon campaign. Prior to the campaign, Arabic-speaking Palmach personnel were sent in to gather intelligence and mine key bridges. Immediately before the campaign began, two Palmach companies were sent in to perform last-minute reconnaissance and divided into twelve squads. They cut wires, ambushed Vichy troops guarding bridges over the Litani River, destroyed culverts, and sabotaged roads. After the Allied invasion began they acted as guides to Australian forces.PALESTINE IN WORLD WAR II Part I The success of these operations led the British GHQ to fund a sabotage training camp for three hundred men at Mishmar HaEmek. Since the Palmach consisted of unpaid volunteers, the funding was used to cover the needs of twice that number of men.Allon, p. 121. When the British ordered the dismantling of Palmach after the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942, the organization went underground.
Underground
Since British funding had stopped, Yitzhak Tabenkin, head of the kibbutz union HaKibbutz HaMeuhad, suggested the Palmach could be self-funding by having its members work in the kibbutzim. Each kibbutz would host a Palmach platoon and supply them with food, homes and resources. In return the platoon would safeguard the kibbutz and carry out work such as agricultural work.Allon, pp. 126, 127. The proposal was accepted in August 1942, when it was also decided that each month Palmach members would have eight training days, 14 work days and seven days off. The program of combined military training, agricultural work and Zionist education was called "Hach'shara Meguyeset" הכשרה מגויסת (meaning "Drafted/Recruited Training"). Later, Zionist youth movements offered members aged 18–20 an opportunity to join core groups (gar'in) for agricultural settlement that became the basis for the Nahal.
Basic training included physical fitness, small arms, mêlée and KAPAP, basic marine training, topography, first aid and squad operations. Most of the Palmach members received advanced training in one or more of the following areas: sabotage and explosives, reconnaissance, sniping, communications and radio, light and medium machine guns, and operating 2-inch and 3-inch mortars. Platoon training included long marches, combined live-fire drills with artillery support and machine guns and mortars.
The Palmach put great emphasis on training independent and broadminded field commanders who would take the initiative and set an example for their troops. It trained squad commanders and company commanders. The major commanders training course was in the Palmach and many Haganah commanders were sent to be trained in the Palmach. The Palmach commanders' course was the source for many field commanders, who were the backbone of Haganah and, later, the Israel Defense Forces.
Postwar operations
For seven months after the assassination of Lord Moyne by Lehi in 1944, members of the Palmach under the command of Shimon Avidan were involved in the Saison activities, in which they cooperated with the British in an attempt to crush the Irgun and Lehi.Eric Silver, Begin, A Biography. 1984, . p. 51. However, with David Ben-Gurion's decision, 1 October 1945, to launch an armed struggle against the British, the Palmach entered an alliance with the dissident groups, called The Hebrew Resistance Movement.Silver, p. 64. On 10 October 1945 a force led by Yitzhak Rabin raided the prison at Atlit freeing 208 Jewish prisoners. The first joint operation took place on 31 October 1945 when the Palmach sank three British patrol boats, 2 in Haifa and one in Jaffa, and were involved in 153 bomb attacks on bridges and culverts of the railway system.Silver, p. 64;
On the night of 22 February 1946, the Palmach attacked the police Tegart fort at Shefa-'Amr with a 200-pound bomb; in the firefight that followed, the Palmach suffered casualties.Horne, pp. 295–96. Also note the author's comment that the Palestine Police found the Palmach easier to penetrate than the Irgun. p. 298. In June 1946 the Palmach blew up ten of the eleven bridges connecting Palestine to its neighbouring countries. Fourteen Palmach members were killed during the attack on Achziv Bridge.
The alliance was never completely under Haganah control and the Irgun launched a series of ever more ruthless attacksSilver, p. 64: 27 December 1946 – 10 British servicemen killed; 25 February 1946 – 20 RAF planes destroyed; 26 April 1946 – 6 paratroopers killed in their beds at their Tel Aviv barracks. culminating in the King David Hotel bombing. This attack was the Irgun's response to a British crackdown, "Black Sabbath", launched on 29 June 1946. A combination of the crackdown and the Jewish civilian leadership's outrage at the King David attack led Ben-Gurion to call off further Palmach operations.Silver, p. 68: Weizmann threatened to resign "I demand you stop all operations by all three underground groups." 17 July 1946. (before the King David bomb). p. 73: Ben-Gurion acquiesced in a return to diplomacy.
Retaliation raids
After a gap of over ten months the Palmach resumed operations. The one weapon of which there was no shortage was locally produced explosives. On 20 May 1947 they blew up a coffee house in Fajja, specifically in retaliation for the murder of two Jews in nearby Petah Tikva.Walid Khalidi, All That Remains. 1992. . p. 240. Following the escalation of violence after the UN Partition Resolution the scale of the retaliation operations increased.
On 18 December 1947, in an operation approved by Palmach commander Yigal Allon, several houses were blown up in al-Khisas, near the Lebanese border; a dozen civilians were killed.Khalidi, p. 465. Including 4 children.Morris, pp. 33, 34. On 31 December 1947 170 men from the Palmach launched an attack on Balad al-Sheikh, Haifa, in retaliation for the killing of 47 Jews at the Haifa oil refinery. Several dozen houses were destroyed and 60-70 villagers were killed.Morris, pp. 43, 156. Puts the number killed at the refinery as 70.Khalidi, p. 154.
Around Jaffa, Palmach units destroyed houses in Yazur and Salama. An order dated 3 January 1948 said "The aim is ... to attack northern part of the village of Salama ... to cause deaths, to blow up houses and to burn everything possible."Morris, p. 157. In the Upper Galilee, the Palmach's third Battalion commanded by Moshe Kelman, attacked Sa'sa', 15 February, and blew up ten houses, killing 11 villagers.Khalidi, pp. 195, 196. Quotes New York Times 16 February 1948 five small children. Further north, they raided al-Husayniyya, 16 March 1948, in retaliation for a land mine, they blew up five houses and killed "30 Arab adults".Morris, p. 56.Khalidi, p. 456. In the Northern Negev, 4 April 1948, a Palmach unit in two armoured cars destroyed "nine bedouin lay-bys and one mud hut" after a mine attack on a Jewish Patrol.Morris, p. 159.
During this period, in the event known as the Convoy of 35, the Palmach lost 18 men (along with 17 other Haganah fighters) on their way to reinforce the garrison at Kfar Etzion after they were attacked by hundreds of Arab locals and militias.Morris, p. 220.The Palmach memorial site records all 35 as members of the Palmach The bodies of the Palmach and Haganah fighters were mutilated to the point that some of them could not be recognized.Raz, Simcha (1976). A Tzaddik in Our Time: The life of Rabbi Aryeh Levin. Spring Valley, New York: Philipp Feldheim Inc.
A change in objectives
On 20 February 1948 the Palmach launched an operation in Caesarea, North of Tel Aviv, in which they demolished 30 houses, six were left standing due to lack of explosives. The objective was to prevent them being occupied by British troops as a base against illegal immigrants. Yitzhak Rabin opposed the attack. Although occupied by Arabs the buildings were Jewish owned.Morris, p. 54. Describes it as "the first pre-planned expulsion of an Arab community by Haganah in 1948".
With the activation of Plan D and its sub-operations Palmach units were used to demolish villages with the objective of preventing them being used by Palestinian irregulars or the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) as bases.
Operation Nachshon
Following the attempt to clear the road to Jerusalem, Palmach units "more or less systematically leveled the villages of al-Qastal, Qalinya, Khuda and largely or partly destroyed Beit Surik, Biddu, Shu'fat, Beit Iksa, Beit Mahsir and Sheikh Jarrah (Jerusalem)".Morris, p. 158.Khalidi, p. 309, quotes Harry Levin's eyewitness account; p. 278., 41 houses destroyed in Bayt Naqquba; p. 276, gives the size of Sixth Battalion as 400–500 men.
On 9 April a Palmach unit with mortars took part in the Irgun attack on Deir Yassin.Khalidi, p. 290.Silver, p. 88.
Mishmar Ha'amek
Following the failed ALA attack on the Haganah base at Mishmar Ha'amek, and the Haganah's refusal of an offer of a truce, Haganah and Palmach troops counterattacked. Between 8 and 14 April, ten villages came under Palmach's control. Within two weeks they were leveled.Morris, pp. 158, 159. "systematically destroyed".Khalidi. For example: p. 142, Abu Shushe, 155 houses in 1945 survey; p. 143, Abu Zurayq, 30 houses blown up; p. 160, al Ghubbayya, 38 houses; p. 169, al Kafrayn "blown up completely", 95 houses; Al Mansi "all houses blown up", 98 houses.
Operation Yiftach and the conquest of Safad