1948 Palestinian exodus from Lydda and Ramle July the IDF appointed Yigal Allon to head the operation, and Yitzhak Rabin, who became Israel's prime minister in 1974, as his operations officer; both had served in the Palmach, an elite fighting force of the pre-Israel Jewish community in Palestine. The operation was carried out between 9 July 1948, the end of the first truce in the Arab-Israeli war, and 18 July, the start of the second truce, a period known in Israeli historiography as the Ten Days. Morris writes that the IDF assembled its largest force ever: the Yiftach brigade; the Eighth Armored Brigade's 82nd and 89th Battalions;
Prime Minister of Malta The office was re-established with the grant of self-government in 1947 with the post being renamed as "Prime Minister of Malta". The post was again suppressed when the 1947 constitution was again suspended between 1958 and 1962 but was retained largely unchanged in the 1964 Independence constitution and the subsequent amendments of 1974 which transformed the form of government into a republic. The President of Malta, who nominally heads the Executive branch, appoints as Prime Minister the member of parliament who, in the opinion of the President, is best able to command a majority of the members of the House