Ben Ami Pachter (born 1919) planned to lead a convoy on 21 March 1948, from Kiryat Haim near Haifa because supplies were short and the defenders of Kibbutz Yehi'am were running out of ammunition. The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine put Yehi'am within the limits of the Arab state rather than the Jewish one. The original date had to be postponed as word reached that many enemy troops were deployed along the route. On 27 March 1948, seven trucks, loaded with supplies and personnel, set off.