The Israel Film Service Collection

This Week 25 Years Ago, Episode 21

17 Minutes, 1973
Genre:
Documentary

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Directed by: Micha Avni
Production:Zohar Arnon, Yehuda Schneidman
Production Company:Israel Film Service
Photographer: Micha Avni
Language: Hebrew
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Subtitles: English, Hebrew

A 35 episode documentary TV series created by the Israeli Film Service. The script follows a week by week account of events in the 1948 war starting with the 1947 UN resolution on the Partition Plan for Palestine and concluding with Israel’s first Defense Forces Parade, on July 27, 1948.
The twenty-first week of the war follows the conquest of the cities of Tiberias, Haifa, and Jaffa by Haganah forces. Among the interviewees are Yigal Yadin, who commanded the Haganah forces, and Moshe Carmeli, commander of the Haifa district.
The British Army is evacuating some of its bases earlier than expected, leading to the advancement of Plan D for the takeover of Tiberias, Haifa, and Jaffa. The operation’s planners ignore the provisions of the partition plan and strive to maintain territorial continuity between all blocs of Jewish settlement.
The Jewish Quarter in the old city of Tiberias is cut off from the Jewish quarter in the new city, and the only way to reach the other side is by swimming through the Sea of Galilee. The Golani and Galilee battalions of the Palmach take control of the city and its Arab residents are evacuated by buses sent by King Abdullah of Jordan.
The Palmach’s Carmeli Brigade operates in Haifa, and after a night of fighting takes over the city. The Arabs, refusing to sign a letter of surrender, evacuate the city on the orders of the Arab Higher Committee, despite the pleas of General Hugh Charles Stockwell and Mayor Shabtai Levy to remain in their homes. Jaffa is also under siege and its residents flee by sea. Those residents who remain – a few thousand out of seventy thousand – sign a surrender agreement.