The force that would become the thirty-five set out from Hartuv on the night of 15 January, carrying supplies toward גוש עציון GUŜ EẐION. The day's newspaper also reported a fatal bombing near the Savoy Hotel in חיפה HAIFA. The march has a reconstructed departure time; the bombing's exact civil date remains less secure in the available dispatch text.

Who set out from Hartuv?

Lewis and Marco reconstruct an assembly of forty men, with two remaining because they lacked weapons. Thirty-eight departed at about 23:15 under דני מס DANNY MAS. After midnight, an injured ankle prevented ישראל גפני YISRAʾEL GAFNI from continuing and two men returned with him. The thirty-five who went on were killed on 16 January. The full account is event://5708־11־05־ל־heh־killed LAMED.1

Their loads included medical plasma, communications batteries and demolition material. They carried no radio of their own. This was a march on foot; the familiar word convoy must not be allowed to suggest that vehicles carried them through the final approach. The mission combined reinforcement with an intended limited offensive task.

What did the day’s report say about חיפה HAIFA?

JTA reported a bombing involving a stolen postal truck near the Savoy Hotel. Its preliminary toll was six יהודים YEHUDIM and a British policeman killed. The report described an attack on an urban area and its victims; it did not provide a final checked roster or establish the identity of every person involved in preparing the vehicle.2

The online text uses today, but the original bulletin's dispatch dateline has not been established. The occurrence may precede the issue date. The article therefore records the bombing as reported by 15 January rather than pretending that the issue's date proves when the vehicle exploded. The deaths are not folded into the losses at גוש עציון GUŜ EẐION.

What did the intelligence report preserve?

The diary of דוד בן-גוריון DAVID BEN-GURION dated 15 January includes the conversation attributed to Arab leaders two days earlier. Its reported shortages and departures belong to the conversation's asserted 13 January context. Repeating the intelligence report here does not make a new departure count for 15 January.3

The day joined urgent action with incomplete information: a force was leaving to reinforce vulnerable communities while leaders and readers were receiving accounts of other attacks and movements whose details remained uncertain.

How is this dated?

This is Day 47 of the 599-day civil-date series: 1948-01-15. Its public Ivrit route is 5708-11-04; after local sunset the adjacent Hebrew route is 5708-11-05.

The departure from Hartuv is reconstructed at about 23:15 on 15 January, after sunset and therefore on ה׳ בשבט ה׳תש״ח 5th 𝑜𝑓 Ŝʾvat, AM 5708. The daily slot itself uses the daytime route of 4 Shevat. The postal-truck bombing is anchored here to JTA's 15 January publication; its original dispatch date remains unresolved. The diary is dated the fifteenth but explicitly embeds a conversation dated the thirteenth.4 5 6

Guided reflections

  • What difference does the lack of a radio make to the meaning of a reinforcement mission?
  • Why should a newspaper’s word “today” be checked against its dispatch dateline?

Footnotes

  1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10761-026-00824-x Assembly, departure and separation of three men. ↩
  2. https://www.jta.org/archive/haganah-routs-arab-units-in-six-four-battle-in-hebron-hills-100-invaders-reported-dead Haifa postal-truck bombing passage, issue of 15 January. ↩
  3. https://bengurionarchive.bgu.ac.il/en/node/8832 Diary containing the 13 January conversation report. ↩
  4. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10761-026-00824-x Departure time. ↩
  5. https://www.jta.org/archive/haganah-routs-arab-units-in-six-four-battle-in-hebron-hills-100-invaders-reported-dead Publication and relative date. ↩
  6. https://bengurionarchive.bgu.ac.il/en/node/8832 Embedded conversation. ↩