The Deir Yassin massacre was carried out in a village west of Jerusalem that had signed a non-belligerency pact with its Jewish neighbors and the Haganah, and repeatedly had barred entry to foreign irregulars. On 9 April approximately 120 Irgun and Lehi members began an operation to capture the village. During the operation, the villagers fiercely resisted the attack, and a battle broke out. In the end, the Irgun and Lehi forces advanced gradually through house-to-house fighting. The village was only taken after the Irgun began systematically dynamiting houses, and after a Palmach unit intervened and employed mortar fire to silence the villagers' sniper positions. The operation resulted in five Jewish fighters dead and 40 injured. Some 100 to 120 villagers were also killed.