There should have been no battle for Jerusalem. The UN had proclaimed Jerusalem an international city and had planned for period of hand over during which time the British would gradually evacuate their troops and police.

However, no UN peace keeping troops were available to take over during the Britain evacuation so Britain was unable to guarantee the safety of UN officials if they came to Palestine during this period and no proper hand over took place.

The result was chaos. Britain had tried to separate Jews from Arabs at the beginning of 1947 by creating zones surrounded by barbed wire with checkpoints at every entrance. Passes, authorized by the Palestine Police were needed to travel from one zone into another. However, fierce fighting now broke out in the mixed unzoned areas particularly in the densely populated old city and the affluent suburb of Katamon.

For the most part, residents of Jerusalem kept out of the fighting. The proportion of anti-Zionist Jews in Jerusalem was higher than in any other area of Palestine while urban Arabs were less likely to take up arms than those living in the country.

Members of Haganah from rural settlements undertook to defend Jerusalem but at the same time attempted to force all Jewish residents to remain in their homes despite the dangers and discomfort of warfare. Arab leaders did not put the same pressure on Arab residents but the Jewish leadership knew that the side that remained in their houses would win the battle for Jerusalem. However the only thing preventing most Jewish residents of the old city from surrendering to the Holy Arab Army during the last days of the British Mandate was the knowledge that the untrained Arab irregulars might kill them anyway so it would be safer to hold out until the more disciplined Jordanian troops marched in after the British left.

In modern Jerusalem, Jewish were most worried about the water supply. Jerusalem's water pipes ran through the Eastern Arab zone first before reaching the Jewish west. Fortunately British building regulations had forced every city household to have subterranean rainwater cisterns. During WW2 the army filled cisterns in Haifa for free as part of air raid precautions. Now Haganah members surreptitiously filled cisterns of Jewish homes in Jerusalem from the mains while it was still flowing and then sealed them off until water was cut off. Even so just two days before the end of the mandate, the head of Haganah's Jerusalem Emergency Committee, Dov Joseph, had to introduce a water ration of 2 gallons per person per day.

After water the greatest threat to the Jewish zones was starvation. From February onwards Arabs besieged the roads to Jerusalem cutting off food supplies to Jewish shops. This despite a police car travelling daily from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and back to check the roads were clear. The Arabs simply let the police travel in peace building their barricades behind them

Dov Joseph, the chief Jewish commodities organizer seized all hoarded food from Jewish shops and homes, forcing the Jewish population to adhere to a severe rationing system.

Most private vehicles were laid up in secure garages as petrol was almost unavailable, even doctors who were given priority had to queue up for hours. Despite this, the police has a terrible problem with stolen public vehicle. Arab and Jewish militant groups stole police armoured cars, ambulances and post office vans. The Post and Telegraph service went so far as to shut down all postal deliveries until their vans were returned. The Palestinian Broadcasting Service issued a daily list of stolen vehicles so soldiers and police on checkpoint duty could identify vehicles that militants could be using for terrorist attacks.

By March, however, the situation had grown so bad that Haganah had to put the first stages of plan Dalet into action. ( See Battle of the Roads -Jerusalem )

Meanwhile the British were gradually withdrawing the British Palestine police to evacuation centres at Bat Galim in Haifa and to Jenin training centre leaving only a skeleton force in Jerusalem to protect the barbed wired administrative centre, nicknamed Bevingrad, and key buildings and services such as Barclay's Bank and the No 22 bus service to the Jewish quarter of the old city.

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