Bernadotte's report of 16 September, proposing the award of the Negev to the Arabs in exchange for Jewish sovereignty over Western Galilee, compelled the Israeli political and military leadership to focus attention on the south, where the surrounded, poorly supplied enclave of less than two dozen settlements was cut off from the core of the Yishuv by Egyptian forces holding the Majdal–Faluja–Beit Jibrin–Hebron axis. Contrary to the truce terms, the Egyptians refused to allow Israeli supply of the enclave by land. The threat of an award of the Negev to the Arabs, the untenable geo-military situation and the plight of the besieged settlements made the breakdown of the truce, in the absence of a political settlement, inevitable. In early October, the Cabinet approved an Israeli offensive to link up with the enclave and to rout the Egyptian army. The IDF deployed elements of four brigades (amounting to 12–14 battalions) and, on 15 October, a supply convoy was sent in. The Egyptians, as expected, opened fire, providing a casus belli. The IDF immediately launched Operation Yoav, originally named ‘Operation Ten Plagues,’ which lasted, with its appendages, until 9 November. During the three weeks of fighting, the IDF overran much of the southern coastal strip, including the small towns of Isdud, Hamama and al Majdal; Beersheba, the Negev's ‘capital’; Beit Jibrin, in the Hebron foothills; ‘Ajjur, in the Judean Hills; and several dozen smaller villages, including Beit Tima, Qauqaba, Barbara, Hirbiya, al Qubeiba and Dawayima, between the Mediterranean and Hebron.