Editing Operation Yoav (section)

==Background==
In the central and northern parts of [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], the Israelis had managed to make substantial territorial gains before the second truce of the war went into effect. But the southern Negev Desert, allocated to a [[Jews|Jewish]] state in the 1947 [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine]], was still under Egyptian control. Despite the second truce, the Egyptians denied Jewish convoys passage through to the Negev, and captured positions beyond the truce demarcation lines.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iogKjVDKRW4C&dq=ben+gurion+decision+to+cap-ture+beersheba&pg=PA245|title=Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography|first=Anita|last=Shapira|date=June 30, 2015|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0812203431 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Operation Ten Plagues (after the punishment God sent to the Egyptians for holding the Israelis captive in the [[Hebrew Bible]]) was made and approved at a Cabinet Session 6 October 1948. The operation came after at 14 October 1948 when a convoy consisting of 16 trucks was fired on as it passed through Egyptian positions.

[[Ralph Bunche]], who had become UN mediator after the assassination of Count [[Folke Bernadotte]], said:

:''[The Israeli] military action of the last few days has been on a scale which could only be undertaken after considerable preparation, and could scarcely be explained as simple retaliatory action for an attack on an [Israeli] convoy.''<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2019.1680972|title=Ralph Bunche and the 1949 armistice agreements revisited|first=Elad|last=Ben-Dror|date=March 3, 2020|journal=Middle Eastern Studies|volume=56|issue=2|pages=274–289|via=Taylor and Francis+NEJM|doi=10.1080/00263206.2019.1680972|s2cid=214416446 |url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/arabisraelidilem0000khou|title=The Arab-Israeli dilemma|first=Fred J. (Fred John) cn|last=Khouri|date=October 20, 1985|publisher=Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

The Operation coincided with [[Operation Ha-Har|Operation ha-Har]], 18–24 October, in which the [[Harel Brigade|Harel]] and [[Etzioni Brigade]]s attacked Egyptian controlled villages along the [[Jerusalem Corridor]].<ref>[[Walid Khalidi|Khalidi, Walid]] (Ed.) (1992) ''All That Remains. The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.'' IoPS, Washington. {{ISBN|0-88728-224-5}}. p.266.</ref>