TFJ Season 2 Episode 21  Foreign Volunteers, The Battle for Lod and the Displacement of Non-Combatants Foreign volunteers were critical to Israel’s victory in the War of Independence. Israel’s fledgling air force was made up of Jewish English speaking pilots, veterans of WWII. It became clear that the only way that Israel could persevere through the difficult beginning of the War of Independence would be if she would seize the initiative and Plan Danny was launched. Part of this operation was to capture Lod (Lydda) which was an Arab stronghold. In the fighting tens of thousands of Arabs either fled their homes or were instructed by their leaders to leave with the assurance that they would return with victorious Arab armies.