Syrian invading forces were repelled at דגניה DEGANIA.

The histories of ההגנה HAʾHAGANA and פלמ״ח PALMAḤ describe armored assaults, close-range antitank resistance and artillery brought to the valley. Incendiary weapons and antitank fire mattered at the communal defenses; two newly arrived 65 mm guns fired from a nearby ridge at Syrian positions. The accounts connect those pressures to the invading force’s retreat.^{1 2}

The diary refers to four cannons while the institutional account emphasizes two deployed guns; neither description is a complete audited artillery inventory. The artillery’s arrival should not erase the defenders who held the positions before it could intervene. Conversely, a single-tank legend cannot explain the whole offensive’s failure. Children, wounded people and commune members lived within the same defended settlements.

The 21 May diary of דוד בן-גוריון DAVID BEN-GURION recounts the preceding day’s fighting. The archive’s translation states:

The Deganias were fiercely attacked yesterday, three tanks were taken out of use. ³

That contemporary date supports the institutional placement on 20 May. The JTA issue of 23 May instead calls the major defense yesterday’s battle, an apparent 22 May date. This inconsistency belongs in the source record, rather than being resolved by making two versions into two invented battles.^{4 5}

The JTA reports that the attackers’ strength was exhausted in unsuccessful assaults and describes destroyed or captured armor. Its casualty and equipment claims remain dispatch-specific. They are not an independently audited final inventory.

The retreat reduced the immediate danger to communities whose defense had looked precarious after Syrian forces took צמח ZEMAH.. The return to the police position and the later public announcement of control had their own reporting sequence. JTA on 21 May already reported recapture, while its 23 May account presented the advance as current news.^{6 7}

Defending a commune was simultaneously a military and a civilian task. The available sources establish that the assault failed. They do not establish a complete list of the dead, an exact Syrian armor count, or that every resident returned immediately after the guns fell silent.

20 May 1948 is the civil date supported by the cited record. Its daytime Hebrew conversion is י״א באייר ה׳תש״ח 11th 𝑜𝑓 Iyar, AM 5708, using the fixed Hebrew calendar. An event after local sunset would fall on י״ב באייר ה׳תש״ח 12th 𝑜𝑓 Iyar, AM 5708. The institutional histories explicitly place the decisive artillery intervention on 20 May. JTA 23 May relative wording implies 22 May and is preserved as a conflict; the original dispatch date and military logs would clarify it. ⁸

• How does the evidence distribute responsibility among local defenders, reinforcement and artillery?
• Why cannot a later dispatch’s yesterday wording automatically replace a dated contemporary diary?