1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (50 page)

The Israelis let loose with all they had-and the Syrian infantry halted. But the tanks and their train of armored cars inched forward. "I waited for the [lead] tank to reach 35 -4o meters [from me] and I fired one shot from the shoulder. I think the projectile was a dud. I had no choice but to straighten up [out of the trench]. I fired one shot from the hip and I hit him," recalled Yitzhak Eshet, the PIAT man at Degania Aleph. The tank was immobilized. (In the tank's logbook, later found inside by the Israelis, its commander, Lieutenant Faiz Khadfi, had jotted down a few minutes earlier: "We attacked a settlement west of Samakh.")343 The ao mm cannon then hit two armored cars behind the tank. Another two tanks were set alight by grenades and Molotov cocktails after they had trampled the kibbutz's outer perimeter fence. The armored column was still operational. But it had left its infantry, pinned down, hundreds of yards behind. The remaining tanks and armored cars turned around and pulled back.344 By 7:45 AM the assault had halted, though Syrian troops, digging in, still held most of the territory between the Samakh police fort and Degania Aleph's fence.

Then it was the turn of Degania Bet. Artillery and tanks shelled the outworks. Around noon the Syrians advanced. They were stopped about a hundred yards from the perimeter fence. The defenders fought grimly, their homes just yards behind them. The Syrians began to dig in.

The Deganias had stopped the Syrians, but they were still just beyond the perimeter fences, harassing the settlements with cannon fire and light arms. The stalemate didn't last. The five-truck convoy, with the four 65 mm mountain guns, had slowly made its way northward from Pardes Katz in the coastal plain. They reached the heights of Alumot, above the Deganias, soon after noon. At 1:20 PM they were ready and began firing into Samakh. Until then, the Syrians were certain that the Israelis possessed nothing that could reach their forward HQ; now their commanders had to scramble for shelter. A lucky hit blew up a Syrian ammunition depot inside the village. The 65 mm's then lowered their sights and began to rake the infantry and armor strung out between Samakh and the Deganias. The dry fields began to burn,345 and panic took hold. The Syrian infantry fled eastward in conf ision,346 shells nipping at their heels. The armor followed. Syrian officers apparently shot some of the fleeing soldiers.347

All in all, they had had a very bad day: the fight at the Deganias had been bloody and frustrating; now they were being subjected to a barrage no one had warned them of. They retreated all the way back to Tel al-Qasir, abandoning the ruins of Samakh, Masada, and Sha`ar Hagolan on the way. The following day, the Haganah reoccupied Samakh, its police fort, and the two kibbutzim,348 and sifted through the bodies-of the fifty-two Jewish dead, left behind in the retreat from Samakh, and the dozens of newly dead Syrians.

The Syrians attributed their defeat to unpreparedness and the quality of the Israeli fortifications. They also pointed to the lack of coordination between various Syrian units and between the Syrians and the Iraqis, who-according to one Syrian historian-were supposed to have assisted them against the Deganias.341 Within days, the Syrian defense minister, the chief of staff, and the commanders of the First and Second Brigades had resigned.-'-'() The defeat persuaded British observers that the Arabs would not win the war. Indeed, they spoke of the Luftwaffe's defeat in the Battle of Britain in 194o, after which it was clear that the Germans would not win the air war: "A greater edge than the [Syrians] enjoyed at Degania they won't have again," they commented.-35i

Having failed in their thrust south of the Sea of Galilee, the Syrian army rested and regrouped and, a fortnight later, reentered the Galilee, this time just south of Lake Hula, at Mishmar Hayarden, a moshav that dominated the Bnot Ya'akov Bridge. Elements of the Second Brigade joined the First in the offensive. Their aim was probably limited: to conquer one or more small chunks of territory in order to reach the start of the expected UN truce with an achievement in hand.352 The attack was probably coordinated with the Lebanese army, which on S June surprised and attacked the small Jewish garrison at al-Malikiya and overwhelmed it (the village had been taken in a commando-style attack by the Palmah on the night of 28 -29 May). A few days later, the ALA, which had withdrawn from central Palestine a fortnight before, returned to the country via al-Malikiya. Al-Qawugji established his headquarters in Nazareth.

The Lebanese success at al-Malikiya marked their only real participation in the war and gave Beirut cover against accusations of indifference to the fate of Palestine.

The Syrians were initially less successful. The First Brigade, now commanded by Colonel Anwar Banud, attacked Mishmar Hayarden on 5-6 June, but without success. On 9 -io June they tried again, core elements of the Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel Tawfiq Bashur, fording the Jordan just north of the settlement. A mortar and artillery barrage preceded the assault.353 The moshav, defended only by several dozen members, fell after a fierce fight. The Syrian assault was assisted by strafing runs by fighterbombers. Some two dozen settlers were taken prisoner. A Syrian historian later wrote that the Jews had left "120" bodies dispersed among the fences, "and from their mouths there was the smell of wine, which the Jews used to give their soldiers during battle."354 Elements of two IDF brigades, which were encamped in the area, failed to intervene, though a battery of 65 mm cannon halted the Syrian advance westward, just short of Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar and the moshava Mahanayim. There the Syrians remained until the start of the First Truce on a June. They had gained a toehold west of the Jordan, giving them, on the military plane, the potential to renew offensive operations in the Galilee; on the political plane they had gained a bargaining chip for future negotiations.

The Lebanese Front

The Galilee Panhandle, bordered in the west and north by Lebanon and on the east by Syria, was defended by the Palmah's Yiftah Brigade. To the west was the Lebanese army, with thirty-five hundred troops in four infantry battalions, two artillery batteries (74 mm and io5 mm), and an armored battalion consisting of armored cars and some light tanks.355 Two of the battalions, with the armored cars and the artillery batteries, were deployed in southern Lebanon in April and early May 1948.356 According to the Arab League invasion plan, they were to advance down the coast road from Ills alNaqurah toward Acre and Haifa.

But at the last moment, Lebanon-despite Prime Minister Riad al-Sulh's often fiery rhetoric-opted out of the invasion. On 14. May, President Bishara Khouri and his army chief of staff, General Fuad Shihab (both Maronite Christians), decided against Lebanese participation; Colonel Adel Shihab, commander of the army's First Regiment (battalion), designated to cross into Israel, apparently refused to march. The Lebanese parliament, after bitter debate, ratified the decision the same day.

The last-minute change of heart stemmed from the powerful Maronite community's disaffection with Arab League policy vis-a-vis Zionism. The Maronites had always been ambivalent, with many regarding the Jews as potential allies against the hostile sea of Muslims that surrounded, and threatened, both communities. As one Israeli agent put it, "in their hearts the Christians are happy with the establishment of the State of Israel."357 The Shiites of southern Lebanon, generally friendly with the Jewish settlements across the border, also appear to have had misgivings about the Jihad against the Jews.35x There was a general recognition that the army was too small and ill equipped to go to war and a fear that hostilities might result in Israeli conquest of southern Lebanon. American and French representatives in Beirut apparently warned the Lebanese to stay out.359 Last, perhaps the Haganah's Operation Ben-Ami, in which the Carmeli Brigade on 13-14 May had ad vanced northward along, and taken, the very road the Lebanese had earmarked for their push southward, had acted as a deterrent.360

Lebanon decided to deploy its army defensively. But to cover itself politically, in the inter-Arab arena, it also agreed to serve as a base for a small ALA "invasion" of Palestine and to provide that force with covering artillery fire, a handful of armored cars, "volunteers," and logistical support.361 The force, the Second Yarmuk Battalion, composed of several hundred Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, and Yugoslav volunteers, was commanded by the Syrian officer Adib Shishakli, and its mission no doubt was coordinated with the Syrian army, which was about to invade from the east.362 On the morning of 15 May, the ALA crossed the border and pushed into al-Malikiya, an abandoned Arab village that was a natural gateway from south Lebanon into the Galilee Panhandle. But the previous night, the Palmah, realizing its importance, had sent in the Yiftah Brigade's First Battalion, which, after an arduous climb, had fanned out in and around the village and the neighboring abandoned British army camp. The two battalions met head on in the alleyways of alMalikiya and the surrounding hilltops.363

The ALA's advantage in artillery-the Palmahniks had none-and the rapid deployment of a company of Jordanian bedouin volunteers, counterattacking from the southwest,364 proved decisive. By nightfall, the Israelis began to retreat eastward, carrying as many as i5o dead and wounded back down the slope to the Jordan Valley.365 The Arabs dug in at al-Malikiya and the neighboring village of Qadis. Yet though victorious, they, too, had suffered serious losses; certainly they had lost the will to advance further. Indeed, their situation was such that Shishakli withdrew his garrison from the neighboring Nabi Yusha police fort to reinforce al-Malikiya.

Subsequently, Beirut Radio repeatedly announced that the Lebanese army had attacked Israel. The broadcasts were intended to fend off possible criticism of Lebanese nonparticipation in the pan-Arab effort. But the HIS had it right: one agent later reported that "the Lebanese army ... did not join the invasion as its main forces were concentrated between Tyre and Ras alNaqurah [to the west]";366 another, that General Shihab had "refused to invade [Palestine] and argued that his army is only a defensive army and [incapable] of offense, but let loose against [Kibbutz] Hanita [in Western Galilee] with a mortar barrage in order to show that the Lebanese were also taking part in the war. "367

Al-Malikiya had been a severe blow. But the Palmah refused to concede defeat. On the night of r5-r6 May, its commandos destroyed a bridge over the Litani River, some six miles north of the border, impairing Lebanon's ability to supply the invading column and forcing the Lebanese to devote re sources to guarding their rear.368 The following night, Yiftah units occupied the (abandoned) Nabi Yusha police fort, just west of Qadis. The fort had previously withstood two determined Palmah assaults. And on the night of 28 - 29 May, Yiftah retook al-Malikiya itself. The brigade attacked the village simultaneously from Kibbutz Ramot Naftali in the east and from the rear, an Israeli mechanized column having crossed the border at Manara, some six miles to the north, and then driven down dirt tracks inside Lebanon, without lights, through a string of Lebanese villages, before reaching al-Malikiya from the rear. The villagers had cheered the column, believing it to be Arab. In all, the Palmate suffered two dead and three wounded in the operation.369 But on S-6 June, as we have seen, the Lebanese army, assisted by a Syrian battalion and the ALA, recaptured al-Malikiya, which had been left in the hands of a Haganah garrison company. The conquest reopened a major supply route from south Lebanon to the upper central Galilee, where the ALA was now concentrated. The attack-Lebanon's only success in the war-enabled Beirut to argue, at last, that they had participated in the assault on Israel. The Lebanese army withdrew from al-Malikiya, handing it over to the ALA, on 8 July, at the end of the First Truce.370

The invasion period ended with both sides attempting to gain local advantage on each front. "In preparation for the truce, which could mark the end of the period of battles, there is a need to create facts [on theground ] ofpolitical importance by capturing certain enemy bases and by capturing our sites that were conquered by the enemy," Southern Front instructed the Giv`ati and Negev Brigades. Givati was told to take sites dominating the Egyptianheld area just north of Isdud; the Negev Brigade, "to `clean up' all the Arab villages captured by the Egyptian military force, and to mount raids on Egyptian supply depots."-171 The Israeli troops proceeded to occupy hilltop positions and villages (Yasur, Batani Gharbi, Julis, Jusair) along the front lines-including the Bir Asluj police fort, on the road between 'Auja al-Hafir and Beersheba, an Egyptian supply route from Sinai. But they failed, as ordered, to take the `Iraq Suweidan police fort or retake Nitzanim. The Egyptians, for their part, on the night of 9-io June captured Hill 69, west of Beit Daras, in a fierce battle372 and, the following day occupied the main MajdalFaluja-Bureir-Julis crossroads. The Jordanians raided Gezer, and the Syrians captured Mishmar Hayarden (as described above).

THE AIR AND NAVAL WAR BETWEEN 15 MAY AND i i JUNE 1948

Air and naval operations during the first, civil war half of the 194-8 war were peripheral and had almost no impact on the fighting. The Palestinian Arabs had no air arm, and the Haganah's Air Service was small and insignificant, employed in reconnaissance, ferrying commanders, resupply, and marginal ground-support missions. Neither side had "navies."

Air and naval operations were also of no great importance in most theaters of operation and battles between 15 May and ii June 1948. Both Israel and the Arab states lacked serious air and naval capabilities. During the first weeks of the conventional war the Israelis' light aircraft continued to bomb Arab encampments and columns, usually at night to avoid enemy interception, and usually with little effect, except marginally on morale.

However, the Haganah had half a dozen combat-trained pilots, and soon they were joined by dozens of experienced North American, Commonwealth, and Western European flyers, who were to constitute the backbone of the IAF (formerly the Air Service).