Operation Pleshet - Prelude

Prelude

At 11:00 on May 29, the Egyptian 2nd Battalion passed through Isdud, and at 12:00–13:00, the 9th Battalion took the village itself, their progress hampered only by occasional machine gun fire from Nitzanim. Later on the same day, the 2nd Battalion stopped at the Lakhish River, about 3 km (1.9 mi) north of Isdud. The Egyptians began preparations to cross the river by erecting a Bailey bridge. Volunteers from Sudan and Saudi Arabia also joined the Isdud position.

Shimon Avidan, the commander of the Givati Brigade, which was responsible for the southern Shephelah area (including most southern Israeli villages at the time), asked to allocate forces to stop or hinder the Egyptian advance. A number of 65 mm Napoleonchik cannons were given to Givati, and units from the Palmach's Negev Brigade were poised to assist it, despite a severe shortage of manpower and munitions in the brigade. On May 28, Czech technicians at the Ekron Airbase finished assembling four Avia S-199 planes (a Messerschmitt variant) brought from Czechoslovakia, which were meant to harass the Egyptian air force base at El Arish, thus forming the IDF's first fighter squadron. Despite being untested, the Chief of Operations Yigael Yadin ordered the planes to assist Avidan's forces. According to Lou Lenart, an American pilot who flew one of the fighters, Avidan told the pilots that Givati "were desperate because between the Egyptian army of ten thousand men with several hundred vehicles and Tel Aviv stood only about 250 Israeli soldiers. The Egyptians were so confident of victory that they were lined up bumper to bumper behind the bridge".