Day 120 of 599 of מלחמת העצמאות MILḤEMET HAʾAẒMAʾUT (War of Independence)

The late-morning and afternoon record describes defenders still confined in a house south of בית לחם BEIT LEḤEM. דוד בן-גוריון DAVID BEN-GURION received a participant's report at 13:00 and proposed assembling a relief force; advisers doubted it could reach the convoy without preparation. A proposal to send relief is not a record of those men actually arriving.¹

מרדכי קופשטיין MORDEHAI KOPSTEIN and driver חיים פייבלוביץ ḤAYIM FEIVELOVICH are individually commemorated as killed on 28 March. The driver's unidentified grave was identified decades later. The convoy battle at النبي دانيال NABI DANIEL began. follows both lives, the military evacuation and the conflicting battle totals. These are second-day deaths in an existing engagement, not a new convoy disaster.^{2 3}

The diary records the first meeting of a committee, a proposed finance body and consideration of a five-million loan over five years at three percent. It also assigns responsibility for beginning tax collection, including excise, entertainment, income and property taxation, and says the Agency would initially fund the civil service. The loan remained under discussion; the entry does not show five million received.⁴

Supply arrangements required importers, millers, transport and money held abroad. The record's attention to raw materials and immigrants' occupations shows preparation to allocate people and goods, not merely announce independence.

The UN digest dated 29 March relays a 28 March report that twelve to fifteen thousand Arab farmers and villagers had left a coastal area. Its wording concerns the last stages of a wider movement. It does not establish that all departed on 28 March, identify every cause or distinguish voluntary flight from organized evacuation and expulsion.⁵

The same digest reports interception of a ship carrying about eight hundred immigrants. It does not identify the ship in that passage. The report belongs to the continuing restriction on entry for יהודים YEHUDIM; its dispatch date and unnamed vessel require verification before merging it with a named voyage.

The day closed one battle's immediate rescue phase while leaving its dead, bereaved families and lost equipment to be accounted for.

This is Day 120 of the 599-day civil-date series: 1948-03-28. Its daytime portion maps to י״ז באדר ב׳ ה׳תש״ח 17th 𝑜𝑓 Adar II, AM 5708. After local sunset the Hebrew date changes to י״ח באדר ב׳ ה׳תש״ח 18th 𝑜𝑓 Adar II, AM 5708. The daily route does not assign every reported incident to that Hebrew date.

The second-day convoy deaths are dated 28 March in individual records. The diary bears 28 March and records a 13:00 briefing; later investigation places evacuation around 16:00–17:00, within the daytime working route 17 Adar II. Unknown times retain the next-date boundary. The 29 March digest reports 28 March dispatches but may describe movement accumulated over earlier days. No mass departure total is assigned to this single day.^{6 7 8}

• How do the two named second-day deaths belong within a single battle?
• Why should an accumulated movement of civilians not become one day’s expulsion total?