The Battles of Latrun were a series of military engagements between the
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...
and the
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
ian
Arab Legion on the outskirts of
Latrun between 25 May and 18 July 1948, during the
1948 Arab–Israeli War
The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...
. Latrun takes its name from the monastery close to the junction of two major highways: Jerusalem to Jaffa/Tel Aviv and Gaza to Ramallah. During the
British Mandate it became a
Palestine Police base with a
Tegart fort
A Tegart fort is a type of militarized police fort constructed throughout Palestine during the British Mandatory period, initiated as a measure against the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt.
Etymology
The forts are named after their designer, British p ...
. The United Nations
Resolution 181
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...
placed this area within the proposed Arab state. In May 1948, it was under the control of the
Arab Legion. It commanded the only road linking the
Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the s ...
-controlled area of
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
to
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, giving Latrun strategic importance in the battle for Jerusalem.
Despite assaulting Latrun on five separate occasions Israel was ultimately unable to capture Latrun, and it remained under Jordanian control until the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
. The battles were such a decisive Jordanian victory that the Israelis decided to construct a bypass surrounding Latrun so as to allow vehicular movement between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, thus avoiding the main road. Regardless, during the
Battle for Jerusalem, the Jewish population of Jerusalem could still be supplied by a new road, named the "
Burma Road
The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. It was built while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second Sino-J ...
", that bypassed Latrun and was suitable for
convoys. The Battle of Latrun left its imprint on the Israeli collective imagination and constitutes part of the "
founding myth" of the Jewish State.
[ ] The attacks cost the lives of 168 Israeli soldiers, but some accounts inflated this number to as many as 2,000. The combat at Latrun also carries a symbolic significance because of the participation of
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
survivors.
Today, the battleground site has an Israeli military museum dedicated to the Israeli Armored Corps and a memorial to the
1947–1949 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
.
Background
1948 Arab–Israeli War
![Israel 15 mai 1948](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Israel_15_mai_1948.GIF)
After the adoption of the
United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...
in November 1947, a
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
erupted in the
British Mandate of Palestine. The Jews living in Jerusalem constituted one of the weak points of the
Yishuv
Yishuv ( he, ישוב, literally "settlement"), Ha-Yishuv ( he, הישוב, ''the Yishuv''), or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri ( he, הישוב העברי, ''the Hebrew Yishuv''), is the body of Jewish residents in the Land of Israel (corresponding to the s ...
and a main cause for concern to its leaders. With nearly 100,000 inhabitants, a sixth of the total Jewish population in the Mandate, the city was isolated in the heart of territory under Arab control.
[See War of the roads and blockade of Jerusalem and ]Operation Nachshon
Operation Nachshon ( he, מבצע נחשון, ''Mivtza Nahshon'') was a Jewish military operation during the 1948 war. Lasting from 5–16 April 1948, its objective was to break the Siege of Jerusalem by opening the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road ...
.
In January, in the context of the "War of the Roads", the
Holy War Army of
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni besieged the Jewish part of the city and stopped convoys passing between
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
and Jerusalem. By the end of March, the tactic proved its worth and the city was cut off. The
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
then launched ''Operation Nachshon'', 4–20 April, and managed to force through a number of
large convoys.
Following the death of Abd al-Qader al-Husayni at
al-Qastal
Al-Qastal ("Kastel", ar, القسطل) was a Palestinian village located eight kilometers west of Jerusalem and named for a Crusader castle located on the hilltop. Used in 1948 during the Arab-Israeli War as a military base by the Army of the ...
, the
Arab League
The Arab League ( ar, الجامعة العربية, ' ), formally the League of Arab States ( ar, جامعة الدول العربية, '), is a regional organization in the Arab world, which is located in Northern Africa, Western Africa, E ...
's military committee ordered the other Arab force in Palestine, the
Arab Liberation Army, to move its forces from
Samaria
Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
(the northern part of today's
West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
) to the road of Jerusalem and the areas of Latrun,
Ramla, and Lydda.
[Gelber (2006), p. 95.]
In the middle of May, the situation for the 50,000 Arab inhabitants of the city and the 30,000–40,000 in the outlying neighbourhoods was no better. After the
massacre at Deir Yassin and the Jewish offensive of April that triggered the
large-scale exodus of the Palestinian Arabs in other mixed cities, the Arab population of Jerusalem was frightened and feared for its fate. With the departure of the British on 14 May, the Haganah launched several operations to take control of the city and the local Arab leadership requested
King Abdullah of Jordan to deploy his army to come to their aid.
On 15 May, the situation in the newly declared State of Israel and the remnants of Palestine was chaotic with the British leaving. The Jewish forces gained advantage over the Arab forces, but they feared the intervention of the Arab armies that had been announced for that day.
[ Yoav Gelber (2006), pp. 138–145.]
Geography
Latrun is located at the crossroads between the Tel Aviv–Ramla–Jerusalem and Ramallah–Isdud roads in the area allocated to the Arab state by the United Nations Partition Plan. At that point, the Jerusalem road enters the foothills of Judea at
Bab al-Wad
Sha'ar HaGai ( he, שער הגיא) in Hebrew, and Bab al-Wad or Bab al-Wadi in Arabic ( he, באב אל-ואד, ar, باب الواد or ), lit. ''Gate of the Valley'' in both languages, is a point on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, 23 km ...
(Sha'ar HaGai). The fort dominated the
Valley of Ayalon
The Ayalon Valley ( he, or , ''ʾAyyālōn'') is a valley in the lowland of the Shephelah in the States of Palestine and Israel, identified in the 19th century as Yalo at the foot of the Bethoron pass, a Palestinian Arab village located sout ...
, and the force that occupied it commanded the road to Jerusalem.
[Se]
this picture of the valley taken from the hills of Latrun
.
In 1948, Latrun comprised a detention camp and a fortified police station occupied by the British,
[ Benny Morris (2008), p. 132.] a
Trappist monastery, and several Arab villages: Latrun,
Imwas
Imwas or Emmaus ( ar, عِمواس), known in classical times as Nicopolis ( gr, Νικόπολις, lit=City of Victory), was a Palestinian Arab village located southeast of the city of Ramla and from Jerusalem in the Latrun salient of the We ...
,
Dayr Ayyub
Dayr Ayyub ( ar, دير أيوب ) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on March 6, 1948 by the Givati and Sheva' brigades of Operation Nachshon. It wa ...
and
Bayt Nuba. During the civil war, after the death of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, the forces of the Arab Liberation Army positioned themselves around the police fort and the surrounding villages, to the indifference of the British.
They regularly attacked supply convoys heading for Jerusalem. At that time, neither the Israeli nor Jordanian military staffs had prepared for the strategic importance of the place.
Prelude
Operation Maccabi (8–16 May)
![Latroun (15 mai)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Latroun_%2815_mai%29.png)
On 8 May,
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
launched Operation Maccabi against the
Arab Liberation Army and the Palestinian irregulars who occupied several villages along the Jerusalem road and prevented the resupplying of Jerusalem's Jewish community. The
Givati Brigade
The 84th "Givati" Brigade ( he, חֲטִיבַת גִּבְעָתִי, , "Hill Brigade" or "Highland Brigade") is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade. Until 2005, the Brigade used to be stationed within the Gaza Strip and primarily perf ...
(on the west side) and
Harel Brigade
Harel Brigade (, ''Hativat Harel'') is a reserve brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, today part of the Southern Command. It played a critical role in the 1948 Palestine war, also known as "Israel's War of Independence." It is one of the former ...
(on the east side) were engaged in fighting, notably in the Latrun area.
[ Efraïm Karsh (2002), pp. 60–62.]
Between 9–11 May, a battalion of the Harel brigade attacked and took the village of
Bayt Mahsir
Bayt Mahsir ( ar, بيت محسير) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on May 10, 1948, by the Harel Brigade of Operation Makkabi. It was locate ...
, used by Palestinians as a base for the control of ''
Bab al-Wad
Sha'ar HaGai ( he, שער הגיא) in Hebrew, and Bab al-Wad or Bab al-Wadi in Arabic ( he, באב אל-ואד, ar, باب الواد or ), lit. ''Gate of the Valley'' in both languages, is a point on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, 23 km ...
''. The "Sha'ar HaGai" battalion of the Harel brigade also took up a position on the hills north and south of the road. It had to withstand the fire of the Arab Liberation Army artillery and the "unusual"
[It is ]Benny Morris
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
who points out. fire of British armoured vehicles, but succeeded in holding the position and entrenched there.
To the west, on 12 May, Givati brigade troops took the British detention camp on the road leading to Latrun, but abandoned it the next day.
[ Ytzhak Levi (1986), detailed chronology of the battle of Jerusalem given at the end of the book.] Between 14 and 15 May, its 52nd battalion took the villages of
Abu Shusha
Abu Shusha ( ar, أبو شوشة) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine, located 8 km southeast of Ramle. It was depopulated in May 1948.
Abu Shusha was located on the slope of Tell Jezer/Tell el-Ja ...
,
Al-Na'ani
Al-Na'ani, also called Al-Ni'ana, was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War on May 14, 1948, by the Givati Brigade during Operation Barak. It was located ...
and
al-Qubab
Al-Qubab ( ar, القباب) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was depopulated in July 1948 during the Operation Dani led by the Yiftach Brigade.
History
Remains, possibly dating from the Roman era have been found here. ...
north of Latrun, thus cutting off the zone from Ramla, the main Arab town in the area.
Lapierre and
Collins
Collins may refer to:
People Surname
Given name
* Collins O. Bright (1917–?), Sierra Leonean diplomat
* Collins Chabane (1960–2015), South African Minister of Public Service and Administration
* Collins Cheboi (born 1987), Kenyan middle- ...
report also that a platoon of the Givati brigade fired on and then penetrated the fort without encountering any resistance on the morning of 15 May.
Again to the east, on 15 May, the troops of the Harel brigade took
Dayr Ayyub
Dayr Ayyub ( ar, دير أيوب ) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on March 6, 1948 by the Givati and Sheva' brigades of Operation Nachshon. It wa ...
, which they abandoned the next day.
It is at this time that the Israeli officers in the field appreciated the strategic importance of Latrun. A report
was sent from OC Harel brigade to OC Palmach that concluded that "The Latrun junction became the main point in the battle
f Jerusalem
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
Hist ...
xact words must be taken from the source but "that appreciation was not shared by the staff one week previously".
[ Benny Morris (2008), p. 463 nn196.] Meanwhile, because of the
Egyptian Army's advance, the Givati brigade got an order to redeploy on a more southern front, and the Harel brigade to remain in the Jerusalem sector.
This decision to leave the area, and the fact of not planning for its strategic importance, would later be a source of controversy between Haganah chief of operations
Yigael Yadin and
Yitzhak Rabin, commander of the Harel brigade.
The Arab Legion takes control
![Habes al-Majali](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Habes_al-Majali.png)
During the confusion of the last days of the British Mandate and with the "entry in war" of the Arab armies, the position at Latrun changed hands without combat.
Firstly, around 14–15 May,
[ Benny Morris (2002), p. 152.] an order was given to
Fawzi al-Qawuqji
Fawzi al-Qawuqji ( ar, فوزي القاوقجي; 19 January 1890 – 5 June 1977) was a leading Arab nationalist military figure in the interwar period.The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives, by Gilbert Achcar, (NY: Hen ...
and his Arab Liberation Army to withdraw and to leave the place to the
Arab Legion. According to
Yoav Gelber, this departure occurred before the arrival of the Jordanian troops at Latrun and the position was held by just 200 irregulars.
[ Lapierre et Collins (1971), p. 611.] Benny Morris
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
nevertheless points out that a platoon of legionnaires of the 11th Company along with irregulars was there and took over the fort.
[ Benny Morris, (2008), pp. 207–208.]
Indeed, as auxiliary forces of the British in Mandatory Palestine, several elements of the Arab Legion served in Palestine during the Mandate. The British had promised that these units would be withdrawn before the end of April, but for "technical reasons", several companies didn't leave the country.
John Bagot Glubb, the commander of the Arab Legion, formed them into one division with two brigades, each made up of two infantry battalions, in addition to several independent infantry companies. Each battalion was given an armored-car company, and the artillery was made into a separate battalion with three batteries. Another "dummy" brigade was formed to make the Israelis believe it was a reserve brigade, thus deterring them from counterattacking into
Transjordan Transjordan may refer to:
* Transjordan (region), an area to the east of the Jordan River
* Oultrejordain, a Crusader lordship (1118–1187), also called Transjordan
* Emirate of Transjordan, British protectorate (1921–1946)
* Hashemite Kingdom of ...
.
[Pollack (2002), p. 270.]
On 15 May, the Arab states entered the war, and
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
n,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
i, Jordanian and Egyptian contingents deployed in Palestine. Among these, the Jordanian expeditionary corps was mainly constituted by an elite mechanized force "encadrée" by British officers and named Arab Legion. It comprised:
* the 1st Brigade comprising the 1st and 3rd Battalions in areas that lead to
Nablus
Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...
;
[In the Jordanian expeditionary corps, each ]brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute a division.
Br ...
is composed of 2 regiment
A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation.
In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted ...
s each of them likely composed of 3 or 4 companies. This information is nevertheless "dubious" (sujette à caution ?). The sources are contradictory at that level. The divergences are likely to be due to the fact that the "battalion", which is generally the unit that subdivides the brigade is named ''regiment'' in the Arab Legion.
* the 3rd Brigade under the orders of Colonel Ashton comprising the 2nd Battalion under the orders of Major Geoffrey Lockett
and the 4th battalion under the orders of Lieutenant Colonel
Habes al-Majali
Habis Majali ( ar, حابس المجالي; 1914 – April 22, 2001) was a Jordanian soldier. Majali served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces from 1958 to 1975, as Minister of Defense from 1967 to 1968, ...
that took position at
Ramallah
Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...
;
* the 5th and 6th Battalions acting independently.
Glubb first realized ("pris conscience") the strategical importance of Latrun in the
Battle of Jerusalem. His objective was twofold: he wanted to prevent the Israelis from strengthening Jerusalem and from supplying the city, and he wanted to "make a diversion" to keep the strengths of the Haganah far from the city, warranting to the Arabs the control of
East Jerusalem
East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel.
Jerusalem was envisaged as a separat ...
. In addition to the 11th Company already there, he sent to Latrun the whole 4th Regiment.
[ Benny Morris (2008), p. 219.] During the night between 15 and 16 May, the first contingent of 40 legionnaires seconded by an undetermined number of
Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...
s strengthened the position,
and the remainder of the regiment reached the area on 17 May.
Benny Morris
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
, ''Histoire revisitée du conflit arabo-sioniste'', Editions complexe, 2003, map p. 241 et pp. 247–255.
On 18 May, the strength of the Arab Legion deployed around Latrun and Bab al-Wad was sufficient, and the road was blocked again.
The Israeli general staff needed several days to assess the actual disposition of the Jordanian forces around Latrun and Jerusalem because these latter were thought to be at several locations in the country.
Situation in Jerusalem
![Ygal Yadin - Lt Gel 1949-1952](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Ygal_Yadin_-_Lt_Gel_1949-1952.jpg)
At Jerusalem, after the successful offensives that enabled the Jewish forces to take control of the buildings and strongholds that had been abandoned by the British,
[see Operation Kilshon.] Glubb Pasha
Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM (16 April 1897 – 17 March 1986), known as Glubb Pasha, was a British soldier, scholar, and author, who led and trained Transjordan's Arab Legion between 1939 a ...
sent the 3rd Regiment of the Arab Legion to strengthen the Arab irregulars and fight the Jewish forces. After "violent" fighting, the Jewish positions in the
Old City of Jerusalem
The Old City of Jerusalem ( he, הָעִיר הָעַתִּיקָה, translit=ha-ir ha-atiqah; ar, البلدة القديمة, translit=al-Balda al-Qadimah; ) is a walled area in East Jerusalem.
The Old City is traditionally divided into ...
were threatened (this felt indeed on 28 May).
"We have surrounded the town": on 22 and 23 May, the second Egyptian brigade, composed mainly of several battalions of irregulars and several units of the regular army, reached the southern outskirts of Jerusalem and continued to attack at
Ramat Rachel
Ramat Rachel or Ramat Raḥel ( he, רָמַת רָחֵל, ''lit.'' Rachel's Heights) is a kibbutz located in central Israel. An enclave within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and overlooking Bethlehem and Rachel's Tomb (for which the kibbutz is ...
.
Glubb nevertheless knew that the Israeli army would sooner or later be stronger than his and that he had to prevent the strengthening of the Harel and Etzioni brigades to secure East Jerusalem. He redeployed his strength on 23 May to reinforce the
blockade.
[ Benny Morris (2008), Description of the Operation Bin Nun, pp. 221–224.] The Iraqi army, at that time seconded by tanks, relieved the Legion units in northern Samaria and these were redeployed towards the Jerusalem sector. The 2nd Regiment of the Legion moved to Latrun.
A full Jordanian brigade was placed in the area.
On the Israeli side, several leaders of the Jewish city sent emergency telegrams to
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
where they described the situation as desperate and that they could not hold out more than two weeks.
[ Anita Shapira, ''L'imaginaire d'Israël : histoire d'une culture politique'' (2005), ''Latroun : la mémoire de la bataille'', Chap. III. 1 l'événement pp. 91–96.] Fearing that without a supply the city would collapse, Ben-Gurion ordered the taking of Latrun. This decision seemed strategically necessary but was politically delicate, because Latrun was in the area allocated to the Arab State according to the terms of the
Partition Plan
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Re ...
and this attack was contrary to the
non-aggression agreements, concluded with King Abdullah
[Until the last days preceding the war, the Zionist authorities and the King Abdullah of Jordan maintained a dialogue. Some historians, such as ]Avi Shlaim
Avraham "Avi" Shlaim (born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli-British historian, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and fellow of the British Academy. He is one of Israel's New Historians, a group of Israeli ...
, consider that this dialogue went up to a tacit non-aggression agreement but this thesis is controversial. This decision was also opposed by the Chief of Operations, Yigael Yadin who considered that there were other military priorities at that moment, in particular on the southern front, where the Egyptian army was threatening Tel Aviv if
Yad Mordechai
Yad Mordechai ( he, יַד מָרְדְּכַי, ''lit.'' Memorial of Mordechai) is a kibbutz in Southern Israel. Located 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Ashkelon, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. In it had a popula ...
fell. But Ben-Gurion set Israeli military policy.
[ Lapierre & Collins (1971), events related to the battle of Latrun, pp. 700–706; pp. 720–723; pp. 726–732; pp. 740–741.] This difference in strategy influenced the outcome of the battle, and has been debated in Israel for many years.
[See section #Israeli historiography and collective memory.]
Jewish convoy making its way to Jerusalem below the Latrun Monastery. 1948.
Battles
Operation Bin Nun Alef (24–25 May)
![Latroun (24 mai)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Latroun_%2824_mai%29.png)
The task to lead Operation Bin Nun (''lit.'' Nun's son, in reference to
Joshua
Joshua () or Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' lit. 'Yahweh is salvation') ''Yēšūaʿ''; syr, ܝܫܘܥ ܒܪ ܢܘܢ ''Yəšūʿ bar Nōn''; el, Ἰησοῦς, ar , يُوشَعُ ٱبْنُ نُونٍ '' Yūšaʿ ...
, Nun's son, conqueror of
Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
according to the
Book of Joshua
The Book of Joshua ( he, סֵפֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ ', Tiberian: ''Sēp̄er Yŏhōšūaʿ'') is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament, and is the first book of the Deuteronomistic history, the story of Isra ...
) was given to
Shlomo Shamir, a former officer of the British army.
His force consisted of 450 men of the
Alexandroni Brigade
The Alexandroni Brigade (3rd Brigade) is an Israel Defense Forces brigade that has fought in multiple Israeli wars. History
Along with the 7th Armoured Brigade both units had 139 killed during the first battle of Latrun (1948), Operation Ben Nu ...
and 1,650 men of the
7th Brigade. Of these, about 140 to 145 were immigrants who had just arrived in Israel, nearly 7% of the total. Their heavy weaponry was limited to two French mortars of 1906 (nicknamed ''
Napoleonchik
The Canon de 65 M modele 1906 where M stands for "montagne", or briefly 65 mm Mle 1906 where "mle" stands for "modèle", was a French mountain gun which entered service with the ''régiments d'artillerie de montagne'' in 1906 and was one of ...
''), one mortar with 15 rounds of ammunition, one ''
Davidka
The Davidka ( yi, דוידקה, ''"Little David"'' or ''"Made by David"'' ) was a homemade Israeli mortar used in Safed and Jerusalem during 1947–1949 Palestine war. Its bombs were reported to be extremely loud, but very inaccurate and otherwi ...
'',
ten mortars and twelve armored vehicles.
Three hundred soldiers of the
Harel Brigade
Harel Brigade (, ''Hativat Harel'') is a reserve brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, today part of the Southern Command. It played a critical role in the 1948 Palestine war, also known as "Israel's War of Independence." It is one of the former ...
were also in the area but were not aware of the operation, but assisted after finding out about it by intercepting a radio transmission.
[ Ami Isseroff, site www.mideastweb referring to Yitzhak Levi (1986), ''Nine measures'', p. 266.]
The Jordanian forces were under the order of Lieutenant Colonel
Habes al-Majali
Habis Majali ( ar, حابس المجالي; 1914 – April 22, 2001) was a Jordanian soldier. Majali served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces from 1958 to 1975, as Minister of Defense from 1967 to 1968, ...
.
He "disposed" of the 4th Regiment and 600 Jordanian volunteers seconded by 600 local volunteers. The 2nd Regiment of the brigade, commanded by Major Geoffrey Lockett, had just left Jerusalem and arrived at Latrun during the battle.
The brigade totalled 2,300 men seconded by 800 auxiliaries. It had at its disposal 35 armoured vehicles with 17
Marmon-Herrington Armoured Car
The Marmon-Herrington Armoured Car was a series of Armored car (military), armoured vehicles that were produced in South Africa and adopted by the British Army during the World War II, Second World War. RAF Armoured Car Company, RAF Armoured Car ...
s each armed with an anti-tank 2 pounder gun. For artillery it had eight
25 pounder
The Ordnance QF 25-pounder, or more simply 25-pounder or 25-pdr, was the major British field gun and howitzer during the Second World War. Its calibre is 3.45-inch (87.6 mm). It was introduced into service just before the war started, combin ...
Howitzers/Field guns,
eight
6 pounder 6-pounder gun or 6-pdr, usually denotes a gun firing a projectile weighing approximately .
Guns of this type include:
*QF 6 pounder Hotchkiss, a 57 mm naval gun of the 1880s; a similar weapon was designed by Driggs-Schroeder for the US Navy
...
anti-tank guns, ten
2 pounder 2-pounder gun, 2-pounder and QF 2 pounder or QF 2-pdr are abbreviations used for various guns which fired a projectile weighing approximately 2 pounds (0.91 kg). These include:
* QF 2 pounder Mk II & Mk VIII "pom-pom" Vickers 40mm naval anti-aircraf ...
anti-tank guns also sixteen 3-inch mortars.
Zero Hour (the start of the attack) was first fixed for midnight 23 May, but it was delayed by 24 hours because it had not been possible to gather troops and weapons in time. Because no reconnaissance patrol was made, the Israelis didn't know the exact composition of enemy forces.
Intelligence reports just talked about "local irregular forces".
On 24 May at 19:30, Shlomo Shamir was warned that an enemy force of around 120 vehicles, comprising armoured vehicles and artillery, was probably moving towards Latrun, and urged an attack. The attack was postponed by 2 hours and fixed at 22:00.
The attack was planned on two axes:
* The battalion of the Alexandroni brigade had to take the town of Latrun, the police fort and then
Imwas
Imwas or Emmaus ( ar, عِمواس), known in classical times as Nicopolis ( gr, Νικόπολις, lit=City of Victory), was a Palestinian Arab village located southeast of the city of Ramla and from Jerusalem in the Latrun salient of the We ...
in order to block any new Arab reinforcement, and also to protect the passage of supply convoys;
* The 72nd Battalion would circle the position by the south to join the Jerusalem road at the level of Bab al-Wad; it would then cross the road and climb the ridges to take Dayr Ayyub, Yalu and Bayt Nuba, and would ambush there to cover the passage of convoys. It would be supported by three armored cars and two half-tracks of the 73rd Battalion.
During the night, something unexpected happened: a roadblock was found and had to be dismantled, as the brigade had to use the road. Zero hour was once more modified and set at midnight.
At last, the troops fought battle between 2 am and 5 am
but with no benefit of cover. The attackers were rapidly discovered, depriving the Israelis of the surprise effect. The battle started at 4am. The Israeli forces were submitted to a strong fire. The artillery tried to intervene but quickly fell out of ammunition or was not within range to provide counter-battery fire.
[Counter-battery fire is a military tactic in which one targets enemy artillery with one's own artillery.]
Foreseeing the total failure of the attack, Shlomo Shamir ordered a retreat at 11:30 am. As this occurred on open ground under heavy sun, and the soldiers had no water, numerous men were killed or injured by Arab fire. It was only at 2 pm that the first injured men reached the transport they had left in the morning.
However, the Arab Legion didn't take advantage of this victory when, according to Benny Morris, it could easily have performed a counter-attack up to the Israeli headquarters at
Hulda.
Jordanians and Arab irregulars had 5 deaths and 6 injured. The Israelis counted 72 deaths (52 from the 32nd Battalion and 20 from the 72nd Battalion), 6 prisoners and 140 injured.
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon (; ; ; also known by his diminutive Arik, , born Ariel Scheinermann, ; 26 February 1928 – 11 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
S ...
, the future Prime Minister of Israel, a lieutenant at the time, headed a platoon of the 32nd Battalion and suffered serious injury to his stomach during the battle.
Reorganisation of the central front
At the end of May, David Ben-Gurion was convinced that the Arab Legion expected to take control of all Jerusalem. Moreover, after the fighting, the situation there deteriorated: the Jewish community had very small reserves of fuel, bread, sugar and tea, which would last for only 10 days, and water for 3 months.
[ David Tal (2003) pp. 225–231.] In Glubb's opinion, the aim was still to prevent the Israelis from reinforcing the city and taking control of its Arab part. On 29 May, the
UN Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and ...
announced its intention to impose a
ceasefire for 4 weeks, which would prevent further capture of territory and thus prevent resupplying the besieged city.
[ Benny Morris (2008), Description of the Operation Bin Nun Bet pp. 224–229.]
From a military point of view, the 10th
Harel Brigade
Harel Brigade (, ''Hativat Harel'') is a reserve brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, today part of the Southern Command. It played a critical role in the 1948 Palestine war, also known as "Israel's War of Independence." It is one of the former ...
required reinforcements and Ben-Gurion dispatched a battalion of the 6th
Etzioni Brigade
The Etzioni Brigade ( he, חֲטִיבַת עֶצְיוֹנִי, ''Hativat Etzyoni''), also 6th Brigade and Jerusalem Brigade, was an infantry brigade in the Haganah and Israel Defense Forces in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It was founded in l ...
. He considered it imperative that the 7th Brigade join the forces in Jerusalem as well as a contingent of 400 new recruits to reinforce the Harel Brigade. Weapons and spare parts that had arrived in Israel by air were also now ready for combat on the Jerusalem front.
The commander of the 7th Brigade wished to neutralize the negative effects of the debacle on the morale of the troops and on his prestige.
The central front was reorganized and its command given to an American volunteer fighting on the Israeli side, Colonel
David Marcus, who was subsequently appointed ''
Aluf'' (
Major General
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...
).
He took command of the Etzioni and 7th Brigades, and the 10th
Palmach
The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Companies") was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach ...
Harel Brigade.
Operation Bin Nun Bet
![Latroun (30 mai)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Latroun_%2830_mai%29.png)
Shlomor Shamir was once again given the command of the operation. He sent the 7th Brigade and the 52nd Battalion of the Givati Brigade that replaced the 32nd that had been decimated in the previous battle.
The 73rd Battalion was an armored force of light infantry with
flame-throwers and 22 "military cars" made locally.
[ Lapierre & Collins (1971), Events relative to the second battle of Latrun, pp. 774–787.]
The Israelis sent numerous reconnaissance patrols
but they nevertheless had no clear idea of the adversary's forces. They expected to fight 600 men of the Legion and of the Arab Liberation Army, so a force was allocated that was not enough to hold the Latrun front.
Jordanians still had in fact a full brigade and are supported by several hundreds of irregulars. Taking into account the mistakes of the previous attacks, the renewed assault was organised with precision, and the area from where the units had to launch their attack had been cleared on 28 May. In particular the two hamlets of Bayt Jiz and Bayt Susin, where a counter-attacks had been launched by the Arab militants during the first battle, and Hill 369.
The attack was once more foreseen on two axes:
* The 72nd and 52nd Infantry Battalions were to counter-attack on foot from the south up to
Bayt Susin
Bayt Susin ( ar, بَيْت سُوسِين) was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine, located southeast of Ramla. In 1945, it had 210 inhabitants. The village was depopulated during the 1948 war by the Isra ...
and then take
Bab al-Wad
Sha'ar HaGai ( he, שער הגיא) in Hebrew, and Bab al-Wad or Bab al-Wadi in Arabic ( he, באב אל-ואד, ar, باب الواد or ), lit. ''Gate of the Valley'' in both languages, is a point on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, 23 km ...
and attack respectively Dayr Ayyub and Yalu, then head for Latrun and attack this from the east;
* The 71st Infantry Battalion and 73rd Mechanised Battalion were to assault the police fort, the monastery and the town of Latrun by south-west.
![Col Marcus in Israel 1948](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Col_Marcus_in_Israel_1948.jpg)
Around midnight, the men of the 72nd and the 52nd passed Bab al-Wad noiselessly and then separated towards their respective targets. One company took Deir Ayyub, which was empty, but then were discovered as they did so by enemies on a nearby hill. They suffered the joint fire of the Legion's artillery and machines guns. Thirteen men were killed and several other injured. The company, composed mainly of immigrants, then retreated to Bab al-Wad. The 52nd Battalion was preparing to take the hill in front of Yalu, but received an order to retreat.
On the other front, the forces divided in two parts. The infantry of the 71st rapidly took the monastery and then fought for the control of the town. On the other side, the Israeli artillery succeeded in neutralizing the fort's weapons. The volunteers crossed the defence fence and their flame-throwers took the defenders by surprise. Nevertheless, the light coming from the fire they created lost their cover and they became easy targets for the mortars of the Jordanians. They were quickly knocked out and destroyed. The sappers succeeded nevertheless to make the door explode, but in the confusion were not followed by the infantrymen. Chaim Laskov, the chief of operations on that front, ordered company D of the 71st Battalion (that had been kept in reserve) to intervene, but one of the soldiers accidentally exploded a landmine, killing three men and injuring several others. They were then attacked by heavy fire from the Jordanian artillery and the men retreated towards the west in panic.
The battle was still not lost for the Israelis although the wake was coming, and Laskov considered that his men could not hold in front of a Legion's counter-attack and he preferred to order the retreat.
It was also time for the Jordanians to regroup, their 4th Regiment was completely out of ammunition.
73rd Battalion suffered 50% losses and the whole of the engaged forces had counted 44 deaths and twice that number injured.
According to the sources, the Legion suffered between 12 and 20 deaths, including the lieutenant commanding the fort.
In contrast, the Jordanians reported 2 just deaths on their side, and 161 of the Israelis.
David Marcus later attributed the responsibility for the defeat to the infantry, stating: "the artillery cover was correct. The armoury were good. The infantry, very bad". Benny Morris considers that the mistake was rather to disperse the forces on several objectives instead of concentrating the full brigade on the main objective: the fort.
"Burma Road"
![Latroun (11 juin)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Latroun_%2811_juin%29.png)
On 28 May, after they took Bayt Susin, the Israelis controlled a narrow corridor between the coastal plain and Jerusalem. But this corridor was not crossed by a road that could have let trucks supply the city.
A foot patrol of the
Palmach
The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Companies") was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach ...
discovered some paths that linked several villages in the hills south of the main road controlled by the Arab Legion.
In the night of 29–30 May,
Jeep
Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...
s sent into the hills confirmed there was a path suitable for vehicles.
[ Benny Morris, ''1948'' (2008), Information relating to the Burma road pp. 230–231.] The decision was then taken to build a road in the zone. This was given the name of "
Burma Road
The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. It was built while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second Sino-J ...
", referring to the supply road between
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
and
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
built by the British during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Engineers immediately started to build the road while convoys of jeeps, mules and camels
were organised from Hulda to carry mortars to Jerusalem. Without knowing the goals of these works, the Jordanians realised a game was afoot in the hills. They performed artillery bombings, that would anyway have been rapidly stopped under the orders of the top British officer, and they sent patrols to stop the works, but without success.
Nevertheless, it was mainly food that the inhabitants of Jerusalem needed. Starting 5 June, the Israeli engineers started to fix the road so that it let civil transport trucks pass to supply the city.
150 workers, working in four teams, installed a
pipeline
Pipeline may refer to:
Electronics, computers and computing
* Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on
** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...
to supply the city with water, because the other pipeline, crossing Latrun, had been cut by the Jordanians.
[ Dominique Lapierre et Larry Collins, ''O Jérusalem'' (1971) pp. 827–828.] In ''O Jerusalem'', Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins talked about heroic action, when during the night of 6–7 June, in fear of the critical situation of Jerusalem and to improve the morale of the population, 300 inhabitants of Tel Aviv were conscripted to carry on their backs, for the few kilometers not yet ready for the trucks, what would be needed to feed the inhabitants of Jerusalem one more day.
The first phase of these works was achieved for the 10 June truce
and on 19 June a convoy of 140 trucks, each carrying three tons of merchandise as well as numerous weapons and ammunition, reached Jerusalem.
The siege of the city was then definitively over.
This Israeli success was punctuated by an incident that became marked in memory: the death of Aluf
Mickey Marcus
David Daniel "Mickey" Marcus (22 February 1901 – 10 June 1948) was a United States Army colonel, later Israel's first General, who was a principal architect of the U.S. military's World War II civil affairs policies,Ossad, Steven L."Out of the ...
, accidentally killed by an Israeli sentry during the night of 10–11 June.
Operation Yoram (8–9 June 1948)
![Yigal Allon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Yigal_Allon.jpg)
Between 30 May and 8 June the status between the Israeli and Arabic armies became a stand-off. They were used to fighting small, violent battles and taking heavy losses of people and arms, and the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
renewed its call for a truce on 11 June. It was in this context that David Ben-Gurion took the decision to withdraw from Galilee the elite 11th
Yiftach Brigade under the orders of Yigal Allon to launch a third assault against Latrun.
He had at his disposal an artillery support composed of four mortars and four guns
that were part of the heavy weapons recently delivered to Israel by
Operation Balak
Operation Balak was a smuggling operation, during the founding of Israel in 1948, that purchased arms in Europe to avoid various embargoes and boycotts transferring them to the Yishuv. Of particular note was the delivery of 23 Czechoslovakia-made ...
.
![Operation Yoram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Operation_Yoram.jpg)
This time, the general staff decided on an attack concentrated on the centre of the Legion disposal, with several diversion attacks to the north to disrupt the Jordanians. While a battalion from the Yiftach Brigade was performed some diversions attacks on Salbit, Imwas and Bayt Nuba, a battalion from the Harel brigade was to take Hill 346, between the fourth and second Legion regiments and a battalion from the Yiftach Brigade was then to pass through it, take Hill 315 and Latrun village and the police fort by the East.
[ Benny Morris, ''1948'' (2008), Information relative to Operation Yoram pp. 229–230.] The Israeli operation started with an artillery barrage on the fort, the village of Latrun and the positions around. Hills 315 and 346 occupied with a company from the Legion, were not targeted not to alert the Jordanians.
The men of the Harel brigade made leave on foot from Bab al-Oued but took a wrong way and mistakenly attacked Hill 315. Located by the Jordanian sentries, they launch the attack of the hill. The Legionnaires were outnumbered but counterattacked with violence, going as far as requiring an artillery bombing on their own position. The Israelis suffered some heavy losses. When the Yiftach arrived at the bottom of Hill 346, they are targeted by firearms, grenades and artillery. Thinking that Harel men were there, they called by radio to the headquarters to ceasefire, and laid down arms. They refused, not believing that account of the events and Harel soldiers stayed in place.
Confusion among Jordanians was as important as among Israelis with the attack on Hill 315 and those of diversion. With the incoming morning and unable to evaluate properly the situation, the Israeli HQ gave orders at 5.30 am for the soldiers to retreat to
Bad al-Oued.
The losses were also significant. Indeed, the 400-strong Harel battalion numbered 16 dead and 79 injured, and the Yiftach a handful of dead and injured. The Legion numbered several dozen victims.
The following day, Jordan mounted two counter-attacks. The first was over
Beit Susin. The Legionnaires took several Israeli guard posts but could not keep them more than a few hours. The fighting took lives and some 20 injuries on the Israeli side. The second was at
Kibbutz Gezer
Gezer ( he, גֶּזֶר) is a kibbutz in central Israel. Located in the Shephelah between Modi'in, Ramle and Rehovot, it falls under the jurisdiction of Gezer Regional Council. In it had a population of .
History
The kibbutz was established in ...
from where the diversion attacks had been launched. A force the strength of a battalion, made up of Legionnaires and irregulars and supported by a dozen armoured vehicles, attacked the kibbutz in the morning. It was defended by 68 soldiers of the Haganah (including 13 women).
After the four-hour battle, the kibbutz fell. A dozen of the defenders escaped. Most others surrendered and one or two were executed. The Legionnaires protected the prisoners from irregulars and the next day freed the women. The toll was 39 dead on the Israeli side and 2 on the Legionnaires' side. The kibbutz was looted by the irregulars and the Legionnaires evacuated the area after the fights. In the evening the Yiftach Brigade retook the kibbutz.
Attacks organised during Operation Danny
After the month of truce, during which
Tsahal
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...
increased forces and re-equipped, the weakest point of the Israeli dispositions were on the central front and the corridor to Jerusalem. The High Command decided to launch "
Operation Larlar
Operation Danny ( he, מבצע דני, ''Mivtza Dani'') was an Israeli military offensive launched at the end of the first truce of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The objectives were to capture territory east of Tel Aviv and then to push inland and ...
" with the objective of taking Lydda, Ramle,
Latrun and
Ramallah
Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...
and relieving the threat on Tel Aviv on a side and West Jerusalem on the other.
[ Benny Morris, ''1948'' (2008) p. 286.]
To achieve this objective
Yigal Allon in entrusted 5 brigades: the Harel and Yiftach (now totalling five battalions), the
8th armoury brigade (newly constituted as the 82nd and 89th battalions), several infantry battalions from the
Kiryati and Alexandroni brigades, and 30 pieces of artillery.
The 7th brigade was sent to the northern front. In a first phase, between 9 and 13 July, the Israelis took Lydda and Ramle and reasserted the area around Latrun by taking
Salbit
Salbit ( ar, سلبيت, also spelled Selbît) was a Palestinian Arab village located southeast of al-Ramla. Salbit was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War after a military assault by Israeli forces. The Israeli locality of Shaalvim ...
, but the forces are exhausted and the High Command renounced to the objective of taking
Ramallah
Ramallah ( , ; ar, رام الله, , God's Height) is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank that serves as the ''de facto'' administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusale ...
.
Two attacks were launched against Latrun.
On the east of the Jordanian positions (16 July)
On the night of 15–16 July, several companies of the Harel brigade laid on an assault against Latrun by the east, around the "artillery ridge" and the villages of
Yalo
Yalo ( ar, يالو, also transliterated Yalu) was a Palestinian Arab village located 13 kilometres southeast of Ramla. Identified by Edward Robinson as the ancient Canaanite and Israelite city of Aijalon.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, pp8081 Du ...
and
Bayt Nuba. They carried on to the hills by way of the villages of
Bayt Thul and
Nitaf transporting their armoury using pack mules. After several hours of fighting and counter-attacks by armoured vehicles of the Arab Legion, they were finally pushed back but could keep control of several hills.
[ Benny Morris, ''1948'' (2008) p. 293.] In total, the Israelis lost 23 dead and numerous injured.
Frontal assault against the police fort (18 July)
One hour before the truce, the High Command decided to try a frontal assault against the police fort. Intelligence indicated that, in effect, it was "more likely than not" that the Legion's forces in the sector were "substantial".
[Description of the assault against the police fort](_blank)
, on the website of the Palmach (retrieved on 2 May 2008). In the morning, reconnaissance patrols had sized up the sector, but could not confirm or deny the information that had been gathered by the intelligence. At 6 pm two
Cromwell tank
The Cromwell tank, officially Tank, Cruiser, Mk VIII, Cromwell (A27M), was one of the series of cruiser tanks fielded by Britain in the Second World War. Named after the English Civil War-era military leader Oliver Cromwell, the Cromwell was th ...
s driven by British deserters, seconded by a mechanised battalion of the Yiftach and supported by artillery launched the attack of the police fort.
When the Israeli forces arrived from the fort, they were shelled by Jordanian artillery. Around 6:15 pm. one of the tanks was hit by a shell (or sustained a mechanical damage
) and had to retreat to al-Qubab for repairs. The remaining forces waited for its return and the attack resumed around 7:30 pm, but was abandoned around 8 pm.
The Israelis counted between 8
and 12 victims. At the same time, elements of the Harel brigade took about 10 villages to the south of Latrun to enlarge and secure the area of the Burma road. The majority of inhabitants had fled the fights in April but those who remained were systematically expelled.
The final assault
After the ten-day campaign, the Israelis were military superior to their enemies and the Cabinet subsequently considered where and when to attack next. Three options were offered: attacking the Arabic enclave in
Galilee
Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Galil ...
held by the
Arab Liberation Army; moving eastward as far as possible in
Samaria
Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first- ...
n and
Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Hebrew language#Modern Hebrew, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous L ...
n areas, taken by the
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
is and
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
ians; or attacking southern
Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...
taken by the Egyptians.
[Benny Morris (2008), pp. 315–316.]
On 24 September, an incursion made by the Palestinian irregulars in the Latrun sector (killing 23 Israeli soldiers) precipitated the debate. On 26 September, David Ben-Gurion put his argument to the Cabinet to attack Latrun again and conquer the whole or a large part of West Bank.
[Benny Morris (2008), pp. 317.]
The motion was rejected by a vote of seven to five after discussions. According to Benny Morris, the arguments that were advanced not to launch the attack were: the negative international repercussions for Israel already accentuated by the recent assassination of
Count Bernadotte
Count of Wisborg (french: Comte de Wisborg; ; german: Graf von Wisborg) is a title granted by the monarchs of Luxembourg to some men formerly titled as princes of Sweden and their descendants.
Since 1892, the title has been borne by the male-lin ...
; the consequences of an attack on an agreement with Abdallah; the fact that defeating the Arab Legion could provoke a British military intervention because of Britain and Jordan's common defense pact and lastly because conquering this area would add hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens to Israel.
[Benny Morris (2008), pp. 317–318.]
Ben-Gurion judged the decision ("A cause for lamentation for generations") in considering that Israel could never renounce its claim in Judea, Samaria and over
Old Jerusalem
The Old City of Jerusalem ( he, הָעִיר הָעַתִּיקָה, translit=ha-ir ha-atiqah; ar, البلدة القديمة, translit=al-Balda al-Qadimah; ) is a walled area in East Jerusalem.
The Old City is traditionally divided into ...
.
Aftermath
![Latroun (19 juillet)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Latroun_%2819_juillet%29.png)
At the operational level, the five assaults on Latrun resulted in Israeli defeats and Jordanian victories: the Jordanians repelled all assaults and kept control of the road between the coastal plain and Jerusalem, with Israel losing 168 killed and many more injured.
[Taking into account the references given in the article, the sum of the Israeli losses for the five assaults gives numbers between 164 and 171 Israeli victims, without taking into account the 39 victims for the attack against Gezer, the 8 of the Jordanian counter attack against Bayt Susin and the 45 of Qirbet Quriqur.] Strategically, the outcome was more nuanced:
*The opening of the
Burma Road
The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. It was built while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second Sino-J ...
enabled the Israelis to bypass Latrun and supply the 100,000 Jewish inhabitants of West Jerusalem with food, arms, munitions, and equipment and reinforce their military position there;
*If the control of West Jerusalem by Israel held some of the Arab forces, the Arab Legion control of Latrun, from Tel Aviv, was a thorn in the side of Israeli forces;
*Latrun was a pivot point of the Legion's deployment;
Glubb Pacha massed a third of his troops there; its defeat would have caused the fall of East Jerusalem and probably all of the West Bank.
[ Benny Morris, ''The road to Jerusalem'' (2002) p. 241.]
At the discussions of the Israeli-Jordano Armistice at
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...
, the Israelis requested unsuccessfully the removal of the legion from Latrun. It subsequently remained under Jordanian control until the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
.
Historiography
Israeli historiography and collective memory
According to Israeli historian
Anita Shapira, there is a gap, at times quite wide, between the 'facts established by historical research' and the image of the battle as retained in
collective memory
Collective memory refers to the shared pool of memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is significantly associated with the group's identity. The English phrase "collective memory" and the equivalent French phrase "la mémoire c ...
. This is certainly the case for the battle of Latrun, which has become, in Israel, a
founding myth.
The clear-sightedness of the Commander-in-Chief
![BGsculptureS](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/BGsculptureS.jpg)
The first version of the battle of Latrun was contrived by
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
and his entourage.
Initially, the governing power within Israel remained silent. However, on May 27, the Israeli daily
Maariv printed a sceptical coverage of Arab accounts, which spoke of a great victory by the Arab Legion, involving some 800 Israeli dead. In response, the Israeli press stressed that the aim of the operation was not to take Latrun, but to strike the Legion and, on June 1, it published casualty figures of 250 deaths for the Arab side and 10 deaths, with 20 badly wounded, and another 20 lightly wounded on the Israeli side.
[ Anita Shapira, ''L'imaginaire d'Israël : histoire d'une culture politique'' (2005), pp. 97–102.]
From 14 June, the press shifted its focus to the 'opening of the Burma route' and, in the context of a conflict between the military's senior command and Ben-Gurion,
Yigael Yadin called the operation a 'great catastrophe' while the latter replied that, in his view, it had been "a great, although costly, victory".
The "official version" entered in the
historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
in 1955 following the work of lieutenant colonel
Israel Beer
Israel Beer (sometimes spelled Yisrael Bar, 9 October 1912 – 1 May 1966) was an Austrian-born Israeli citizen convicted of espionage. On March 31, 1961, Beer, a senior employee in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, was arrested under suspicio ...
, whereas adviser and support of Yadin at the time of the events, who published 'The battles of Latrun'. This study, considered by the historian
Anita Shapira as "the most clever ever written on the topic", puts the battles in their military and political context. It concludes that given the strategic and symbolic importance of Jerusalem, "the three tactical defeats that occurred at Latrun (...) permitted the supply
f the city
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
Hist ...
and were a diversal manoeuvre (...)
ndare the consequence of the strategic clear-sightedness of the Commander-in-Chief, able to identify the key points and subordinate to his general sight the tactical considerations, limited, of the military command.
Ber put the responsibility of the tactical defeats on the failures of the intelligence services and on the "absence de commandement séparé sur les différents fronts." He also points out the badly trained immigrants, the defective equipment, and the difficulty for a new army to succeed a first operation targeting to capture a defended area that was organised by advance. He gives the first estimates for the losses: 50 deaths in the 32nd battalion of the ''Alexandroni'' brigade and the 25 deaths in the 72nd battalion of the 7th brigade (composed mainly of immigrants).
Finally, Ber
founded the myth and pictured the events of Latrun as "an heroic saga, as the ones that occurs at the birth of a nation or at the historical breakthrough of movements of national liberation".
Criminal negligence
bout the First Battle of Latrun:"the Jordanians broke the attack by noon, with fewer than two thousand Israeli deaths."
Whereas many events in the war were more bloody for the Israelis, like the massacre at
Kfar Etzion with 150 deaths or the one of the Mount Scopus with 78, the Battle of Latrun is the event of the war to provoke most rumours, narratives and controversies in Israel.
[ Anita Shapira, ''L'imaginaire d'Israël : histoire d'une culture politique'' (2005) pp. 103–112.] The main reason is that Latrun had still been the mainstay for the road to Jerusalem until the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
, keeping the Israelis at the margins and having to go round and maintain the town, but struggling to bypass it, which played each day on their minds. According to
Anita Shapira, the primary reason was nothing but people's grievous memories, of David Ben-Gurion and the veterans of the British Armies on one side and former
Palmah and
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the ...
soldiers on the other.
In this sphere of influence during the 1970s and in the controversies that continued until the 1980s, the "Strategic Necessity" was said, if it were not done, it would be "
Criminal negligence
In criminal law, criminal negligence is a surrogate state of mind required to constitute a ''conventional'' (as opposed to ''strictly liable'') offense. It is not, strictly speaking, a (Law Latin for "guilty mind") because it refers to an ob ...
", with a heavy toll on bring in immigrants to the battle, and forging a new
founding myth.
On one side, the opponents of Ben-Gurion attacked his "
moral authority Moral authority is authority premised on principles, or fundamental truths, which are independent of written, or positive, laws. As such, moral authority necessitates the existence of and adherence to truth. Because truth does not change, the princi ...
". They said that the intrusion into Latrun by the "scum of the earth" immigrants who died had changed the situation for the worse. And the number of victims, and the proportion of immigrants, inflated in the narratives: from "several hundreds of dead" to "500 to 700 dead and even "1,000 to 2,000 dead". The proportion of immigrants making up this total of victims was up to 75%. His opponents accused Ben-Gurion of wanting to take out the myth of the "invincible
Arab Legion" and to justify the abandonment of the city of David to Abdallah.
(
Anita Shapira considers this story to be at the origin of the theory of
Avi Shlaim
Avraham "Avi" Shlaim (born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli-British historian, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and fellow of the British Academy. He is one of Israel's New Historians, a group of Israeli ...
who brought forth what she considers as the myth of the collusion between Ben-Gurion and Abdallah.
) On the other side, those supporting Ben-Gurion put everything to advance the case of the "historic sacrifice" by the immigrants, laying the failure to their poor training.
Many contemporary books about the 1948 War were published at this time:
John and David Kimche, ''The two sides of the hill'' (1960) (the more reliable);
Dominique Lapierre
Dominique Lapierre (30 July 1931 – 2 December 2022) was a French author.
Life
Dominique Lapierre was born in Châtelaillon-Plage, Charente-Maritime, France. At the age of thirteen, he travelled to the U.S. with his father who was a diplomat ...
and
Larry Collins,
''O Jerusalem'' (1972) (the best known internationally) and
Dan Kurzman, ''Genesis, 1948'' (1970) (the only one that got reviews in the Israeli press).
With this political writing, historical research on Latrun tends to concentrate on the 1980s with the work of Arié Itzhaki, "Latrun" (in 2 volumes). It gives the exact number of victims, but contrary to
Israel Beer
Israel Beer (sometimes spelled Yisrael Bar, 9 October 1912 – 1 May 1966) was an Austrian-born Israeli citizen convicted of espionage. On March 31, 1961, Beer, a senior employee in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, was arrested under suspicio ...
(meanwhile caught as spying for
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
), it depicts the battle as "The hardest in the history of
Tsahal
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the Israel, State of Israel. It consists of three servic ...
", and ''it puts the responsibility of the defeat on Ben-Gurion, who panicked about Jerusalem, and tactical errors on the brigade commanders and not on the immigrants who received'' (from his point of view
[ Anita Shapira, ''L'imaginaire d'Israël : histoire d'une culture politique'' (2005), underlines that Itzhaki thought wrongly that the immigrants had got training before in Cyprus.]) a sufficient training.
The drama of alienation
![Buchenwald concentration camp survivors sailing to Haifa, June 1945](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Buchenwald_concentration_camp_survivors_sailing_to_Haifa%2C_June_1945.jpg)
In the first years after its foundation, Israel met a problem with
social integration
Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society.
Social integration, together with economic integration and identity integration, are three main dimensions of ...
of new immigrants who had arrived after the war, who had received much trauma from their exodus from Arab lands or from the death camps, and had suffered six years of war. Their integration was difficult with
Sabra Israelis, born in the Palestinian Mandate, and taking the essential jobs and around who Israel had built an image of "Sabras, strong and courageous, fearless heroes, disdaining feebleness and trouble". The phenomenon rose up again with the Israeli victory of the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
.
[ Anita Shapira, ''L'imaginaire d'Israël : histoire d'une culture politique'' (2005) pp. 113–121.]
All the while, these uncertainties and the reparations from the
Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...
polished the sheen on the
Shoah
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
. The collective memory resurfaced and looked to reconcile its history of difficulties, suffering and sacrifices. A new elite arose from the
Sephardic Jew
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
s and the "can-do" of
Menahem Begin.
In this context, the "myth" of Latrun derived from the frustrations and the death of the new immigrants and was catalysed by their integration in a society where "the survivor of Shoah carried the new collective memory, immigrant refugees who had troubled pasts, and then were confronted with hostility and threat and still took their place with their blood and taking part in the war".
This myth was founded in the factual knowledge of the immigrants' participation in the battles, and the mythical knowledge because of the differences in the number of victims, the leaving of the injured on the fields of battle, and that the Latrun battle was the hardest and most important in the war.
The influence on written history appeared primarily in books and commentary, where "the immigrants wanted only to make sure that their contribution at the battle was written in the collective memory with a plus sign". It didn't bring new documents but it expressed itself in memoirs, reminiscences and obituaries by or of those involved in the events. It was a view that was seldom heard in polemics giving two preceding versions of events but that had a life of its own, given to it by the immigrants.
Myth of guilt
![Wobbelin Concentration Camp](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Wobbelin_Concentration_Camp.jpg)
In the 1980s, a schism arose within the
post-Zionism
Post-Zionism refers to the opinions of some Israelis, diaspora Jews and others, particularly in academia, that Zionism fulfilled its ideological mission with the formation of the modern State of Israel in 1948, and that Zionist ideology should ...
movement, and the history of the battle of Latrun came to represent the culpability of the Israeli state and a way of pointing out that it was born in the context of
massacres and the
exodus of the Palestinian population. It shouted "hypocrisy", "false truths", and "the blood of the escapees of
Shoah
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
who came to find a new life and yet found death".
[ Anita Shapira, ''L'imaginaire d'Israël : histoire d'une culture politique'' (2005) pp. 122–131.]
This version was put into several poems by the celebrated provocative poet
Gabi Daniel (pseudonym of Benjamin Harushovsky-Harshav) and entitled "
Peter the Great
Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
". Themes in the poem include dehumanisation and how Ben-Gurion got Shoah into his pocket, by the work of the other "innocent young Jews of the Superior Race, who, without name or vision, found themselves the saviours of Israel".
:''Peter the Great''
:''Paved the city of St Petersburg''
:''In the northern seas''
:''On the backs of his serfs.''
:''David Ben-Gurion''
:''Paved''
:''The Burma Road, which turned around''
:''The road, by the road to the capital Jerusalem,''
:''With the backs of the young refugees from Shoah.''
Anita Shapira considers this "New myth" was necessary not to reject identity with the past and to be able to renounce their common memory. While Israel in the 1980s was under much criticism from myths about the state's founding, the reception of this idea was mitigated and "this version of Latrun that was destined to blow up the myth that the regathering was solely in the hands of a group of radicals in the middle of the
sraeliintellectual community".
Qirbet Quriqur
A battle fought in this zone and tragic for the Israelis was completely eclipsed from their collective memory. On 18 July, a company from the 1st Battalion of Yiftach Brigade received the order to capture
Qirbet Quriqur, an outpost protecting the only way for the Legion to get to Latrun located several kilometres to the north of the place. Intelligence services had not informed the responsible officer that nearby there was another outpost, occupied by a reinforced company of the Legion. From there the legionnaires could observe all the operations of the Israelis and called for reinforcements, notably armoured vehicles. When they mounted the counter-attack, the Israelis were taken by a lightning strike in an encircling movement. No troops were available there to reinforce them, so they had to retreat in plain daylight. 45 Israeli soldiers, nineteen of them aged 18 or less, lost their lives.
[ Anita Shapira (2007) p. 234.]
Despite this bloodbath, Anita Shapira underlines that this battle didn't remain in the Israeli collective memory. "If success has numerous fathers,
..defeat remains an orphan.
..The deaths of Qurikur did not enter into the pantheon of the Israeli
national memory
National memory is a form of collective memory defined by shared experiences and culture. It is an integral part to national identity.
It represents one specific form of cultural memory, which makes an essential contribution to national group coh ...
.
.. hile there were numerous polemics about Latrun that 45 soldiers perished
..should have begged a question. But they died in a side of the arena that proved to be unimportant, given it was not to decide the outcome of the campaign.
Commemoration
After the
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 Wa ...
and the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
, the army came to arm the most important place. For technical reasons (distance of communication with bases) and because new places of historical interest were accessible, the top brass debated whether to transfer the postings of new recruits at
Masada to a more appropriate place. It was Latrun that was finally chosen. In the 1980s, a commemorative site and a museum was built on the old police site.
The complex has a wall listing all the names of the fallen soldiers since the
1947–1949 Palestine war
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
, and a monument to the glory of the heroes and another for reverence. The museum has nearly 200 tanks and other armoured vehicles of many kinds.
Jordanian historiography
According to Eugène Rogan, the Jordanian history of the war is essentially that of the recollections by Jordanian officers who took part in the fighting, or of nationalist historians. He states that these "non-critical" works are largely loyal to the Jordanian regime and quotes ''My memoirs'' by
Habes al-Majali
Habis Majali ( ar, حابس المجالي; 1914 – April 22, 2001) was a Jordanian soldier. Majali served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces from 1958 to 1975, as Minister of Defense from 1967 to 1968, ...
, commander of the 4th Regiment; ''The battles of Bad al-Oued'' by Mahmoud al-Ghussan, one of the High Command officers; ''On the road to Jerusalem'' by Ma'n Abu Nuwar, an officer of the Arab Legion, Jordanian soldier and ''Soldier with the Arabs'' with
John Bagot Glubb.
[ Eugène Rogan (2001) p. 96.] Jordanian historiography declares Latrun as a great success of the
Arab Legion in the defense of Jerusalem, where a contingent of 1,200 men resisted an assault of 6,500 Israeli soldiers, and claiming Israeli casualties of between 400
and 800 killed. Glubb claimed 600 deaths on the first assault and 600 others for the two after.
Habes al-Majali
Habis Majali ( ar, حابس المجالي; 1914 – April 22, 2001) was a Jordanian soldier. Majali served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces from 1958 to 1975, as Minister of Defense from 1967 to 1968, ...
is quoted as the only Arab commander to have defeated the Israelis in 1948 and who restored a little honour to the Arabs. By his version of events, he would even have caught
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon (; ; ; also known by his diminutive Arik, , born Ariel Scheinermann, ; 26 February 1928 – 11 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
S ...
in the course of the battle and it is Colonel Ashton (his British superior from 3rd Brigade) would have forbidden him to use the artillery against the Burma road, action by which he could have prevented its construction.
After the war, he was appointed bodyguard of Abdallah and in 1957
Chief-of-Staff of the Jordanian Army. He became Jordanian Minister of Defence in 1967.
Palestinian historiography and collective memory
![Palestinian refugees](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Palestinian_refugees.jpg)
The Palestinian account of the battle is much the same as the Israeli one. It is, after, all, based on the Israeli one but gives no weight or symbolic character to it. In his work "All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948"
Walid Khalidi refers to
Operation Maccabi
The Battles of Latrun were a series of military engagements between the Israel Defense Forces and the Jordanian Arab Legion on the outskirts of Latrun between 25 May and 18 July 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Latrun takes its name fro ...
as the first assault. He reports that the resistance offered by the Arab Legion and the volunteer army were "inspired by
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni" (who had been killed a month before).
Nevertheless, Palestinian historiography and collective memory argue that the
exodus of Palestinian Arabs during the
1948 War
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
could be seen as
ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...
. In the Latrun zone, this affected about 20 villages and ten thousand Palestinian Arabs. Some inhabitants fled during the fights of April but most fled when the Israelis attacked their village during the following operations. After capturing a village, the Israeli soldiers systematically expelled the non-combatants, intimidating them to leave and demolishing houses. A massacre of between thirty and seventy Arabs took place some days after Abu Shusha was taken. Most villages were levelled, so as not to be used by the Arab volunteers and to prevent the inhabitants returning. In some cases Jewish settlements were established on village land.
[ Ayr Ayyub (371 inhabitants), Saydoun (244 inhabitants), Deir Mouheizin (232 inhabitants), ]Saris
A sari (sometimes also saree or shari)The name of the garment in various regional languages include:
* as, শাৰী, xārī, translit-std=ISO
* bn, শাড়ি, śāṛi, translit-std=ISO
* gu, સાડી, sāḍī, translit-std= ...
(650 inhabitants), Beit Far
Khirbat Bayt Far was a Palestinians, Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict, Mandatory Palestine, Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine, located 14 km south of Ramla. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palesti ...
(348 inhabitants), Abou Shousha (1000 inhabitants), al-Na'ani
Al-Na'ani, also called Al-Ni'ana, was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War on May 14, 1948, by the Givati Brigade during Operation Barak. It was located ...
(1705 inhabitants), et Abou Qoubab (2297 inhabitants), Beit Mahsir (2784 inhabitants), Beit Jiz
Bayt Jiz ( ar, بيت جيز) was a Palestinian Arab village situated on undulating land in the western foothills of the Jerusalem heights, southwest of Ramla. In 1945, it had a population of 550. It was occupied by Israeli forces in the 1948 Ar ...
(115 inhabitants), Beit Sousin (244 inhabitants), Latrun (220 inhabitants), Khirbet Ism Allah (23 inhabitants), Deir Rafat (499 inhabitants), Sar'a (394 inhabitants), Islin
Islin ( ar, عسلين) was a Palestinian Arab village located 21 kilometers west of Jerusalem. The village had a population of 302 inhabitants and was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It was occupied by Israeli forces, possibly from ...
(302 inhabitants), Ishwa
Ishwa' ( ar, إشوع) was a Palestinian village which was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The village was located about 20 km west of Jerusalem, on the present location of Eshta'ol. In the 1931 British census of Palestine, Ishw ...
(709 inhabitants), Kasla (325 inhabitants) and Deir Amr
Dayr 'Amr was a Palestinian Arab village in the Jerusalem Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War on July 17, 1948, by the Fourth Battalion of the Har'el Brigade, during the second stage of Operation Dan. It was located ...
(719 inhabitants). See
References
;Footnotes
;Citations
;Sources
Works about the
1948 Palestine War
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. It is known in Israel as the War of Independence ( he, מלחמת העצמאות, ''Milkhemet Ha'Atzma'ut'') and ...
and the military operations that occurred at Latrun
*
Abu Nowar, Ma'n, ''The Jordanian–Israeli War 1948–1951: A History of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan'', Ithaca, 1999, .
*
Gelber, Yoav, ''Palestine 1948'', Sussex Academic Press, Brighton, 2006, .
*
Karsh, Efraïm, ''The Arab–Israeli Conflict—The Palestine War 1948'', Osprey Publishing, 2002, .
*
Khalidi, Walid
Walid Khalidi ( ar, وليد خالدي, born 1925 in Jerusalem) is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, establishe ...
, ''All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948'', Institute For Palestine Studies, 1992.
* Itzchaki, Ariè, ''Latrun. The Battle for the road of Jerusalem'', Jerusalem, 1982.
*
Lapierre, Dominique and Collins, Larry, ''O Jerusalem'', Robert Laffont, 1971, and
*
Levi, Ytzhak, ''Nine Measures: The Battles for Jerusalem in the War of Independence'', Ma'arachot, 1986.
*
Morris, Benny
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
, ''1948'', Yale University Press, 2008, .
*
*
Tal, David, ''War and Palestine 1948. Strategy and Diplomacy.'', Frank Cass & Co, 2003, .
*
Protagonist biographies
*
Morris, Benny
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
, ''The road to Jerusalem'', I. B. Tauris, 2002
*
Shapira, Anita, ''Igal Allon, Native Son. A Biography'', University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007
*
Silberman, Neil, ''A Prophet from Amongst You: The Life of Yigael Yadin, Soldier, Scholar, and Mythmaker of Modern Israel'', Addison Wesley, 1994.
Works concerning the "myth" of Latrun and its impact on the Israeli identity
*
Abramson, Glenda (editor), ''Modern Jewish Mythologies'', Hebrew Union College Press, 1993, In particular, the article of Anita Shapira, ''Myth and Identity: the case of Latrun 1948'', pp. 37–56
*
Shapira, Anita, ''L'imaginaire d'Israël: histoire d'une culture politique'', Calmann-Lévy, 2005,
Articles related to Jordanian historiography
*
Rogan, Eugène et Shlaim, Avi (editors), ''The War for Palestine 1948'', chap. 4, Cambridge University Press, .
Cartography
Detailed map of Palestine made in 1946and compressing all the roads, towns, villages and settlements. It is signed by
Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...
and A. Sudki El Jundi.
Current map of the Jerusalem road
Official documents
*
Bernadotte, Folke,
Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator On Palestine Submitted to the Secretary-General for Transmission to the Members of the United Nations', Report A/648, 16 September 1948.
Testimonies
*
Abu Nuwar, Ma'n, ''Fi sabil al-quds'' ("On the Road to Jerusalem"), Amman, 1968
* al-Ghussan, Mahmoud, ''Ma'arik Bal al-Wad'' ("The Battles of Bab al-Wad"), Amman, non dated
*
Glubb, John Bagot, ''Soldier with the Arabs'', Harper, 1957
*
al-Majali, Habes, ''Moudhakkirati'' ("My Memories"), Amman, 1960
*
Rabin, Yitzhak ''Memories'', 1980,
*
Shamir, Shlomo ''The Battle for Jerusalem'', Posner, 2001,
*
Sharon, Ariel, ''Warrior. An Autobiography'', Simon & Schuster, 1989, pp. 47–61,
Filmography
* ''
Cast a Giant Shadow'', by
Melville Shavelson
Melville Shavelson (April 1, 1917 – August 8, 2007) was an Americans, American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. He was President of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAw) from 1969 to 1971, 1979 to 1981, and 1985 to 1 ...
, 1966
*
Is Jerusalem Burning? Myth, Memory and the Battle of Latrun'
Literature
*
Oren, Ram, ''Latrun'', 2002,
External links
Historical perspectives and testimonies of the Battle of Latrunwith
Benny Morris
Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...
,
Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé ( he, אילן פפה, ; born 1954) is an expatriate Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, direc ...
and
Anita Shapira.
*
al-Latrun
' : The Battle of Latrun based on Walid Khalidi, ''All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948'', Institute For Palestine Studies, 1992.
Battles of Latrun on the official Palmach website
Battles of Latrun on the official Haganah website
* Anonymous
on the website of the Jordanian Embassy in the United States.
*
Isseroff, Ami
*
Thomas, Steven
{{DEFAULTSORT:Latrun, Battles of
Conflicts in 1948
1948 in Israel
Battles and operations of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War
Military history of Jerusalem
Battles involving Jordan
Burials at Mount Herzl
1940s in Jerusalem