Operation Matate (Broom) was a Haganah offensive launched on 4 May 1948 in the course of Operation Yiftach. The orders given to Palmach company commanders before the sub-operation stated specifically that the villages of al-Zanghariyya, al-Tabigha, and 'Arab al-Shamalina should be attacked, "their inhabitants expelled and the [ir] houses blown up. As the Palmach columns approached these villagers, the residents fled eastwards into Syria; the following day, sappers methodically blew up over fifty houses in al-Zanghariyya and the other villages. That al-Zanghariyya was occupied on 4 May. Israel established the settlement of Elifelet on village lands west of the village site, in 1949. All that is left are blocks of basalt that once had been parts of twelve houses.