from early April, operational orders for attacks on villages and clusters of villages more often than not called for the destruction of villages and, implicitly or explicitly, expulsion." Issuing expulsion orders was hardly necessary though, because "most villages were completely or almost completely empty by the time they were conquered", "the inhabitants usually fled with the approach of the advancing Jewish column or when the first mortar bombs began to hit their homes." Causes of the third and fourth waves, July–October 1948 and October–November 1948 In July "altogether, the Israeli offensives of the Ten Days and the subsequent clearing operations probably send something over 100,000 Arabs into exile." About half of these were expelled from Lydda and Ramle on 12 through 14 July. Morris says that expulsion orders were given for both towns, the one for Ramle calling for "sorting out of the inhabitants, and send the army-age males to a prisoner-of-war camp". "The commanders involved understood that what was happening was an expulsion rather than a spontaneous exodus." In October and November Operations Yoav in the Negev and Hiram in central Galilee were aimed at destroying enemy formations of respectively the Egyptian army and the Arab Liberation Army, and precipitated the flight of 200,000–230,000 Arabs. The UN mediator on Palestine Folke Bernadotte reported in September 1948 that Palestinian flight, "resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion". United Nations observers reported in October that Israeli policy was that of "uprooting Arabs from their native villages in Palestine by force or threat". In the Negev the clearing was more complete because "the OC, Allon, was known to want "Arab-clean" areas along his line of advance" and "his subordinates usually acted in accordance" and the inhabitants were almost uniformly Muslim. In the Galilee pocket, for various reasons, about 30–50 per cent of the inhabitants stayed. More specifically regarding the causes of the exodus Morris says: "Both commanders were clearly bent on driving out the population in the area they were conquering," and "Many, perhaps most, [Arabs] expected to be driven out, or worse. Hence, when the offensives were unleashed, there was a 'coalescence' of Jewish and Arab expectations, which led, especially in the south, to spontaneous flight by most of the inhabitants. And, on both fronts, IDF units 'nudged' Arabs into flight and expelled communities." Two-stage analysis The "Two-stage