Arab armed men attacked homes of יהודים YEHUDIM in שכונת התקווה HATIKVA.

JTA's report published on 9 December describes a nighttime attack that reached several hundred yards into שכונת התקווה HATIKVA. It reports fires, flight toward central תל אביב TEL AVIV, and arriving ההגנה HAʾHAGANA reinforcements; the dispatch says a final casualty total was not yet known. Its publication date must not be made the event date. The same dispatch describes a separate Arab attack on an English Empire-escorted convoy near Abu Kabir, where English Empire personnel were hit. Those casualties do not belong to שכונת התקווה HATIKVA.²

Benny Morris's later history identifies Hasan Salama as leading hundreds of irregulars. A Palestinian participant, Abd al-Aziz Saqr, recalled in a 2007 Arabic interview that residents of Salama and neighboring villages joined the attack. The sources support an organized assault, but a roster and operational order have not been inspected, so the exact force size and command relationship remain uncertain.³

Saqr says that Aisha Ibrahim al-Houtari was gathering grass near שכונת התקווה HATIKVA when men who were יהודים YEHUDIM tried to assault her, and that her call for help led Salama residents to arm themselves. His account gives the attack a local grievance in addition to anger over partition. It is a participant's recollection recorded nearly sixty years later, not an independent investigation of the alleged attempted assault or the intentions of every fighter. He describes the attack beginning around sunset and continuing until midnight.⁴

أهل سلمه استشاطوا غضب وحملوا سلاحهم وهجموا على مستعمره هتكفا⁵

TJD translation: “The people of Salama became furious, took up their weapons, and attacked Hatikva.” The quotation establishes how Saqr remembered his community's action. It does not verify his explanation of the incident involving al-Houtari, his claim about which civilians fighters spared, or later claims that the attackers permanently held homes of יהודים YEHUDIM.

A later popular figure of seventy Arab deaths was disputed almost immediately. In his diary dated 9 December, דוד בן-גוריון DAVID BEN-GURION wrote that a HaBoker report of seventy Arab dead had “no basis.” JTA's 10 December report says the ההגנה HAʾHAGANA considered seventy exaggerated and estimated twelve. Those are competing claims, not a verified toll. Morris later gave another figure. No person-level roll has been checked, so none of these numbers is added to a confirmed running total.⁶

Ben-Gurion also recorded seeing empty שכונת התקווה HATIKVA houses on 9 December. His observation agrees with reports of wartime flight but does not give the number of people who left, their individual reasons, or whether they later returned. The evidence here establishes reported flight during fighting, not an evacuation order, expulsion, or denial of return.⁷

Morris gives the civil date 8 December 1947 without an hour. The JTA calls it a nighttime battle, and Saqr recalls its start around sunset. The daylight portion of 8 December was 25 Kislev 5708; after local sunset it was 26 Kislev. The exact onset relative to sunset is not established closely enough to choose one Hebrew date, so this companion is assigned only to Kislev 5708. The Day 9 OTD article records the civil-day context without asserting that the fighting began in daytime 25 Kislev.⁸

• How can a defender's success in stopping an assault coexist with civilian flight and damaged homes?
• Which evidence could establish the battle's casualties and onset time without treating one newspaper estimate as a final roll?