Day 89 of 599 of מלחמת העצמאות MILḤEMET HAʾAẒMAʾUT (War of Independence)

The scholarly study by Kobi Cohen-Hattab places the inauguration on 26 February and gives forty-two victims buried. The supplied Davar lead gives forty-three in the following day's headline; JTA's later account uses forty-five while describing funeral arrangements. The full study, Opening of סנהדריה SANHEDRIA Cemetery., keeps these counts and their evidentiary limits distinct.^{1 2}

The new cemetery made burial accessible when the usual route was unsafe. It did not contain every victim: individual memorials establish earlier or different burial places. A burial total cannot become the massacre's final death toll.

Klir's 26 February entry reports three drivers killed and sixteen wounded in a convoy attack. A later heritage account supplied with the research also assigns 26 February but cites a newspaper issue bearing that same date. The sequence may cover 25–26 February; without the original dispatch or operational log, the exact occurrence day remains unresolved.^{3 4}

The report concerns supplies and the people driving them, not a verified total for all road fighting that day. Claims that attackers spoke English do not by themselves identify official imperial units.

Klir's 27 February entry describes destruction at an orchard house on the previous day. The supplied police transcription offers a different casualty account, but its original record has not been examined. The accounts cannot be added together or confidently identified as one operation. Their unresolved casualties remain outside any verified cumulative tally.⁵

The supplied جبع JABA village history also places a raid on 26 February, distinct from the preceding day's shooting. Damage to houses does not independently establish occupation, evacuation orders or expulsion. The blocked source remains an attributed reconstruction rather than a newly verified village-depopulation event.⁶

This is Day 89 of the 599-day civil-date series: 1948-02-26. Its daytime portion maps to ט״ז באדר א׳ ה׳תש״ח 16th 𝑜𝑓 Adar I, AM 5708. After local sunset, the Hebrew date changes to י״ז באדר א׳ ה׳תש״ח 17th 𝑜𝑓 Adar I, AM 5708. This calendar convention does not prove that every reported act occurred in daylight.

The cemetery opening is explicitly 26 February. Convoy dating remains a 25–26 February reconstruction because occurrence and issue dates may have been conflated. Klir’s 27 February reference to yesterday supports 26 February for the orchard-house episode without resolving its identity or toll. ⁷

• What does the dated evidence establish, and what remains uncertain?
• How did this event affect the safety, institutions or sovereignty of יהודים YEHUDIM?