On April 9, 1948, the Deir Yassin Massacre took place, in which the Irgun and Lehi Jewish paramilitary organizations attacked the village, killing 107 Palestinians. Deir Yassin was an Arab village situated on a hill just outside of West Jerusalem.The attack came as part of a larger, coordinated attempt to break the Arab military blockade of Jerusalem. There were approximately 400 to 1,000 residents in Deir Yassin, and by most accounts, they had a good relationship with their Jewish neighbors. Both Arab and Israeli authorities have closely examined and denounced the precise sequence of events that preceded and followed the massacre. In November 1947, the United Nations voted on the partition of British-occupied Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews accepted the partition plan, but the Arab states rejected it, sparking riots and violent attacks on Jews throughout the Middle East. Over the following months, Arab militias began a campaign to eliminate all Jewish presence in the area. By April 1948, the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi decided to put their ideological differences aside and attempted to break the Arab blockade in what was termed “Operation Nachshon.”When the Irgun and Lehi began marching to Deir Yassin, they attempted to warn residents to flee, though accounts vary on the degree to which this was viable. Arab fighters opened fire to defend the village, putting up stiffer resistance than Irgun and Lehi anticipated. 107 Palestinians, including women and children, were killed. Four Jewish fighters were also killed, and another 40 were wounded. Accounts from both Jewish and Arab eyewitnesses say that Irgun and Lehi rounded up the surviving women and children and loaded them into trucks to be evacuated while parading captured male Arab prisoners in the street. The Haganah leadership, including David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir, harshly condemned the attack, with Meir even sending a letter of apology on behalf of the Jewish communities to King Hussein of Jordan. Hussein rejected the message, as he was already preparing his forces to attack the Jewish state upon the declaration of independence. Five days after the Deir Yassin Massacre, Arab forces carried out a revenge attack on a Jewish medical convoy, an action that would later be named the Hadassah Convoy Massacre, in which 78 Jews, including doctors, nurses, patients, and Haganah fighters, were killed.