demoralisation: "The Haganah mortar attacks of 21–22 April were primarily designed to break Arab morale in order to bring about a swift collapse of resistance and speedy surrender.... But clearly the offensive, and especially the mortarring, precipitated the exodus. The three inch mortars 'opened up on the market square [where there was] a great crowd ... a great panic took hold. The multitude burst into the port, pushed aside the policemen, charged the boats and began to flee the town', as the official Haganah history later put it." Nathan Krystall writes: "As a precursor to its attack on Qatamon, the Zionist forces subjected the neighborhood to weeks of heavy artillery shelling. On 22 April, the Arab National Committee of Jerusalem ordered its local branches to relocate all women, children, and elderly people from the neighborhood." In his report concerning the fall of Jaffa the local Arab military commander, Michel Issa, writes: "Continuous shelling with mortars of the city by Jews for four days, beginning 25 April, ... caused inhabitants of city, unaccustomed to such bombardment, to panic and flee." According to Morris the shelling was done by the Irgun. Their objective was "to prevent constant military traffic in the city, to break the spirit of the enemy troops [and] to cause chaos among the civilian population in order to create a mass flight". High Commissioner Cunningham wrote a few days later "It should be made clear that IZL attack with mortars was indiscriminate and designed to create panic among the civilian inhabitants." Massacres In his memoirs the Palestinian Arab physician Elias Srouji claims massacres were intended to scare inhabitants. He wrote: Tactics became even more brutal when the Zionists were ready to complete their occupation of the Galilee in October. By that time the Arab villagers, having seen what had happened elsewhere, had become adamant about staying put in their homes and on their lands. To frighten them away, the occupying forces started a strategy of planned massacres, which were carried out in Eilabun, Faradiyya, Safsaf, Sa'sa', and other villages. In places where this was not to their advantage for one reason or another, the army would resort to forceful expulsion. I was to wittnes some of these tactics in Rameh a month or so later. Nathan Krystall writes: News of the attack on and massacre in Deir Yassin spread quickly throughout Palestine. De Reynier argued that the "general terror"