פלמ״ח PALMAḤ secured צפת ẒEFAT.

The historical account of ההגנה HAʾHAGANA places the renewed assault on the evening of 9 May. Separate forces attacked the citadel, a school strongpoint and the town police building. The latter required renewed attacks and explosives after the first breakthrough failed. Its account places control of the Arab neighborhoods and completion of the town’s capture on 10 May.¹

The פלמ״ח PALMAḤ account describes a simultaneous attack on the principal positions, supported by mortars and antitank weapons. It labels the renewed attack the night of 10 May, exposing a real difference in the sources’ night dating. Both distinguish this success from the failed assault on 6 May.² The earlier failure is studied in Assault by פלמ״ח PALMAḤ on the citadel failed..

On 11 May, דוד בן-גוריון DAVID BEN-GURION recorded in the archive’s English translation:

Safed is in our hands.³

This confirms what the leadership understood by that morning. It does not supply an independently timed last shot or prove that every position changed hands at once.

The institutional battle account describes mass flight after the defensive positions fell, intensified by fire and burning fuel stores. That establishes flight under military pressure in the account; it should not become a universal assertion that every family was personally expelled by a fighter. Conversely, describing the town as simply abandoned would erase the assault and the danger surrounding departure.⁴

Mustafa Abbasi’s scholarly reconstruction argues that the final stage involved deliberate expulsion, citing mortar fire intended to frighten civilians:

took overt steps to expel the Arab residents⁵

He also reports removal of ill and elderly residents who remained after the battle. These findings prevent treating all departures as unprompted flight; they do not establish that every departing household received the same individual order. His account describes continued resistance on the police-station roof after the principal positions fell, so a citywide completion date should not imply that every shot ceased that day.⁶

A complete account of the departures requires named household records, orders and testimony. Published population estimates are broader than a verified tally of departures on 10 May. The defeat of the armed defense and the survival of the community of יהודים YEHUDIM are established; individual civilian experiences and the final casualty list remain less precise.

The working route א׳ באייר ה׳תש״ח 1st 𝑜𝑓 Iyar, AM 5708 corresponds to daytime 10 May 1948, the completion date given by the history of ההגנה HAʾHAGANA. The fixed-calendar conversion gives 1 Iyar 5708 before sunset.⁷ That account starts the assault on the evening of 9 May, already the same Hebrew date after sunset. The פלמ״ח PALMAḤ page instead calls it the night of 10 May, potentially ב׳ באייר ה׳תש״ח 2nd 𝑜𝑓 Iyar, AM 5708. The 11 May diary confirms control by then. Original combat logs are needed to distinguish opening, principal strongpoints and final consolidation.^{8 9 10}

• How do the differing night labels change the dating of the assault without erasing the successful defense of the community?
• Which evidence distinguishes mass flight under attack from individual acts of expulsion?