1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (71 page)

Once again, Allon was stupefied and angry; once more he had had the Egyptian Expeditionary Force by the throat and had been ordered to let go. But Ben-Gurion would brook no dissent. Chief of Staff Dori rebuked Allon: he "had no right ... to criticize the political management of the war," which was the political leadership's prerogative.72 Ben-Gurion reportedly told AlIon: "You are a good commander but you have no political experience. Do you know the value of peace talks with Egypt? After all, that is our great dream! "73 That night (9 -Jo January), the Harel and Eighth Brigade evacuated Sheikh Zuweid, reopening the Rafah-El Arish road. By the end of the day, all IDF units had quit Egyptian territory. Two days later, on 12 January, Egyptian and Israeli delegations arrived in Rhodes to begin UN-mediated armistice negotiations. The fighting war had ended.

But the battles of 4-7 January around Rafah had managed nonetheless to suck in the British. In November 1948 the Israelis had downed a British Mosquito reconnaissance aircraft over Israel. London suspended reconnaissance flights. But Operation Horev prompted a renewal of border-hugging flights, and between 3o December 1948 and 6 January 1949, the RAF flew seven reconnaissance missions over Sinai, principally to ascertain the positions of the Israeli columns and whether they were in violation of the international frontier. All the missions had ended without incident. The flights of 7 January were to be different.

That morning, the British sent two flights over the combat zones around and south of Rafah: a flight of two Mosquitos, accompanied by four Spitfires, to reconnoiter and photograph the situation on the ground; and a flight of four Spitfires whose mission was "tactical reconnaissance." Both were apparently ordered to fly over Abu Ageila and then veer northward, along the western side of the international frontier; not to cross into Israeli territory; and not to attack Israeli ground or air forces, being permitted to fire back only if attacked by aircraft. The photographic mission passed without incident. But the second mission, of four Spitfires-each armed with loaded zo mm cannon-came to grief. Passing over an Israeli position southwest of Rafah, one of the aircraft was downed by Israeli ground fire. Seconds later, the other three were shot down by a pair of patrolling Israeli Spitfires. The "Israeli" pilots, incidentally, were an American and a Canadian, both nonJews, who a few years before had fought alongside the RAF against the Germans. One of the British pilots was killed, two were captured by Israel, and the fourth was picked up by bedouins and returned safely to the Suez Canal. At the start of the battle, it was unclear to the Israelis to whom the intruding Spitfires belonged. All four had been shot down on the Egyptian side of the frontier. But the Israelis then dragged parts of the downed planes across the frontier into Israel-"for understandable reasons," as Allon put it.74

The British then sent a further patrol, consisting of nineteen aircraftfifteen Tempests and four Spitfires-to find out what had happened to the missing foursome. Because they were on a search mission, the guns of all but one of the Tempests were not cocked before takeoff and could not be cocked in flight, which meant that they were virtually defenseless. They took approximately the same flight path as the original Spitfires, but it is possible that some of them strayed into Israeli airspace. At all events, four Israeli Spitfires, with Ezer Weizman in the lead, pounced on them. Again, the British-with their eyes pinned to the ground in search of wrecked aircraftwere caught by surprise. And again, the Israelis, coming out of the sun, were initially uncertain whom they were attacking. The British Spitfires, flying ahead of the Tempests, were not involved in the battle. A number of British Tempests were hit, and one of them crashed, ten miles inside Israel, with its pilot killed.75 The Israelis suffered no losses.

The British military and political authorities, understandably angry, issued threats, and the IDF braced for a British revenge attack. Ben-Gurion jotted down in his diary, on hearing of the felled planes: "The information I received worried me"76-and he rushed back from Tiberias to Tel Aviv. Israel signaled London, via the United Nations, that it had had no intention of attacking Britain. London reconsidered. The British cabinet decided against lifting the arms embargo on the Arab states and limited its reaction to landing "Force 0," consisting of a brigade HQ, an infantry battalion, an antitank battery, and an antiaircraft battery in Aqaba on 8 January (a move that, in fact, had already been decided in November, principally because of a possible Israeli threat to Jordan)77-and, perhaps surprisingly, awarding Israel de facto recognition.78 The Israelis interpreted the Aqaba landing and other British troop movements in the region, and the threat to renew arms shipments to the Arabs, as minatory.7' But the bulk of the British cabinet, perhaps restraining Bevin, reached the conclusion that Britain had been in the wrong or at least felt that now that the Arabs had agreed to negotiate all armistice, the war was at an end-and hardly a time for Britain to embark on a war of its own against the Jewish state.

Throughout, the British government received little comfort from Washington or its own public. McDonald later reported that Truman, at a meeting with the British ambassador to Washington, had been "firm": he had criticized the flights over the battle zone and the landing of the troops at 'Aqaba and had commended Israel's "prompt withdrawal" from Sinai and its readiness to negotiate an armistice.80 The Americans appealed to Britain to refrain from escalation. In London, Winston Churchill and several British newspapers castigated the government's behavior.

But Israel took, and continued for several more days to take, the British threat, and its assumed designs on the Negev, seriously. Ben-Gurion instructed Dori and Yadin to beef up the Negev's defenses and plan a counterstrike, should the British attack in the Negev, the West Bank, or Jerusalem.81 The IDF prepared Operational Plan Yefet to confront a possible British-Jordanian-Iraqi challenge and exploit an attack in the Negev to make gains in the center of the country. The Israelis expected the British to open with a preemptive air campaign against IAF bases.82

Nothing came of all this. Within days, British belligerency was replaced by conciliation. The British took note of Israel's military preparations. But they were probably more impressed by America's support for Israeli control of the Negev and Washington's abandonment of the Bernadotte plan; Washington would certainly not countenance a British war on Israel to gain control of the Negev.

Whitehall, including Bevin, caved in. As Ben-Gurion put it in his diary: "Meanwhile, Bevin has been panicked by his Conservative critics and [criticism by] his party colleagues, and yesterday made a surprise announcement that it has been decided to free the Cyprus illegal immigration detainees (when?) and [that the Cabinet] is discussing recognition of the Israeli government. It seems that they have had enough."s'

OPERATION HISUL

"From the Egyptian perspective, Faluja is their Tobruk, and their people are holding out with great courage," Ben-Gurion said on 29 December.s4 He was explaining the latest in the string of Israeli failures against the pocket. Mivtza hisul (Operation Liquidation), during 27-28 December, was a sideshow of Operation Horev. Much as the besieged pocket was an albatross and source of great anxiety for the Egyptians, it was a permanent thorn in the side of the IDF, sitting astride a main crossroads and necessitating the investment of large encircling forces, lest the Egyptians mount a breakout from, or a break-in into, the pocket. It had to be destroyed-the aim was "the liquidation of the pocket," as the operational order put it-and the General Staff allocated the Alexandroni Brigade, an additional infantry battalion, the 15 znd, and a number of artillery and heavy mortar batteries, for the task. Operation Horev was seen as a natural "environment" for the action, when the main Egyptian forces, and air force, would be otherwise preoccupied.

After repeated bombing raids during a6-a7 December, two battalions, the Thirty-third and Thirty-fifth, went in on the night of a7-28 December. The aim was to conquer the village of `Iraq al-Manshiya and positions around it on the eastern edge of the pocket and then to assault Faluja and its environs. The Egyptians, with about four thousand troops, were well dug-in.

The initial moves went badly. The Thirty-fifth Battalion attacked before midnight. But its two companies failed to take the two-squad "Road Position," which dominated the road between Faluja and `Iraq al-Manshiya, or to penetrate `Iraq al-Manshiya from the east. Rain and mud hampered the attack, jamming weapons and limiting mobility. The battalion also failed to mine the road.

Two hours later, the Thirty-third Battalion succeeded in entering and occupying most of `Iraq al Manshiya, despite stubborn Egyptian resistance. But the battalion's C Company failed to take the dominant hillock, Tel Sheikh al-Areini, just north of the village. Meanwhile, inside the village, Israeli soldiers-"unable to control themselves," as one IDF report subsequently put its-`-mowed down surrendering Egyptian troops. This may account for the powerful resistance offered by the Egyptian troops on the nearby tel. Battalion HQ lost contact with C Company and, eventually, with the two companies inside the village, whose component units continued fighting, in disorganized fashion, pockets of Egyptian resistance. Just after dawn, an Egyptian armored column with infantry support reached `Iraq alManshiya from Faluja. Israeli reinforcements failed to reach the Thirty-third Battalion. The Egyptian armor picked off Israeli squads and platoons in the village's alleyways. The battalion HQ failed to provide the embattled companies with artillery support. At 9:30 AM, 28 December, brigade HQ ordered a general retreat. The companies withdrew in disorder; few from C Company, stranded north of the village, made it. Altogether, the Thirtythird and Thirty-fifth battalions suffered eighty-eight dead, five MIAs, and sixty wounded-the worst losses suffered by the Yishuv in a single engagement during the war other than in the fall of the `Etzion Bloc in mid-May.

The Egyptians probably suffered a similar number of casualties," and after a series of telling IAF raids, in which some sixty-five Egyptian soldiers died, Said Taha requested permission to surrender the Faluja Pocket: "The bodies of the dead are emitting a stench.... The whole town [Faluja] is continuously under fire. I see [that is, want] to agree to hand it over to the Jews." But the Egyptians managed to push several convoys with supplies into the pocket, and the Egyptians held on, despite the artillery harassment.87 But here, too, the guns fell silent on 7 January.

Hisul had been a dismal failure, and the pocket remained intact until the signing of the Israel-Egypt General Armistice Agreement on 24 February 1949, after which the Egyptian troops peacefully withdrew to Sinai under Red Cross flags.

As in previous episodes during the war, aerial activity had a marginal effect on the ground operations in Operation Horev; though both sides had substantially reinforced their air forces. Both flew dozens of ground attack and interception sorties, and the Egyptian air force-now with new Italian-made Macchi and Fiat fighters-lost half a dozen to Israeli interceptors and ground fire. At least three Macchis were destroyed on the ground in IAF attacks on Bir al-Hama Airfield in Sinai. In aerial combat, the Spitfires proved superior to the Italian models. Nonetheless, the Egyptians bombed the 'Eqron Airfield, Jerusalem, and (apparently by mistake) the Allenby Bridge near Jericho. IAF aircraft repeatedly bombed the Egyptian forward airstrips around El Arish and Bir al-Hama as well as Egyptian positions in the Gaza Strip and Abu Ageila. At sea, an Egyptian flotilla on i January briefly shelled Tel Aviv and was driven off by IAF B-ids.

All in all, Horev had been a major Israeli victory. The IDF had failed to destroy or even permanently trap the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which was saved by the UN bell. But it had cleared the Egyptians out of Palestine, except for the sliver of territory to be known as the Gaza Strip. And it had forced the army's political superiors, in order to save it, to sue for an armistice.

Moreover, Operation Horev triggered conciliatoriness beyond Egypt's borders. Once Egypt was out of the fight, its allies realized-if they hadn't before Horev-that it was pointless to battle on. Egyptian readiness to lay down arms had a domino effect in the Arab world. And some Arabs were even ready to go one better. Horev had severely alarmed the Jordanians; perhaps they feared that they were next in Israel's sights. They began to clamor for the start of formal peace negotiations. This echoed in Alec Kirkbride's cable to London of 29 December, calling on London to remove its veto on the start of such negotiations: "King 'Abdullah should be allowed to make the best terms he can with the Jews without further restrictions on our part," he wrote Bevin.88

The stage was set for the start of the diplomatic termination of the war.