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COURSE OF THE WAR |
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COURSE OF THE WAR |
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Photo courtesy Jerusalem Post |
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Armored truck near Jerusalem |
The first large-scale assaults began on January 9, 1948, when approximately 1,000 Arabs attacked Jewish communities in northern Palestine. By February, the British said so many Arabs had infiltrated they lacked the forces to run them back. In fact, the British turned over bases and arms to Arab irregulars and the Arab Legion.
Early in the war, from November 29, 1947 until April 1, 1948, the Palestinian Arabs took the offensive, with help from volunteers from neighboring countries. The Jews suffered severe casualties and passage along most of their major roadways was disrupted.
The vast majority of Palestine's main roads ran through areas populated by Arabs, and by controlling the roads, the Arabs could effectively lay siege to areas of Jewish settlement. In March, having failed to capture Jewish settlements, the Arab forces concentrated on the battle for the roads, while continuing their attacks on outlying districts in the mixed towns and on settlements in the north, the Jerusalem mountains, and the Negev. Nevertheless, a convoy of armored trucks succeeded in making the trip from Negbah to Gat, which had been cut off for a long period, and an Arab arms convoy was ambushed and destroyed near Kiryat Motzkin. In general, the Arabs scored considerable success in the battle for the roads: on March 26 Jewish traffic on the coastal road leading to the Negev came to a complete stop; a convoy on its way back to Jerusalem from the Etzion bloc was trapped near al-Nabi Daniyal and another, which tried to reach Yehiam, was ambushed and wiped out
Starting in April 1948, the Haganah took the initiative. Operation Nachshon was devised to open the road to Jerusalem, and in six weeks was able to turn the tables by capturing the Arab sections of Tiberias, Haifa and later also Safed and Acre. They temporarily opened the road to Jerusalem (April 20) and gained control of much of the territory alotted to the Jewish State under the UN Resolution. The operation opened the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road long enough to allow three long convoys bearing arms, ammunition, and supplies to reach Jerusalem. This condition however, lasted only a short period of time. Immediately thereafter supplies could no longer easily reach Jerusalem and convoys had to turn back, as the road to became impassable once again. This precipitated the siege of Jerusalem. To lift the siege, the Jewish forced (guided by the American Mickey Marcus) constructed the "Burma Road" (named for the road built by the Allies from Burma to China during World War II), a make-shift winding path through the seemingly unpassable mountains around Jerusalem that bypassed the main road. This allowed the Jewish forces to relieve the Arab siege on June 9, just days before the United Nations negotiated a cease-fire.
From mid-May to mid-July, the critical phase of the war, came the simultaneous, coordinated assault on the new State of Israel by five regular Arab armies from neighboring countries. From the north, east and south came the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt. The invading forces were fully equipped with the standard weapons of a regular army of the time - artillery, tanks, armored cars and personnel carriers, in addition to machine guns, mortars and the usual small arms in great quantities, and full supplies of ammunition, oil, and gasoline. Further, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria had air forces. As sovereign states, they had no difficulty in securing whatever armaments they needed through normal channels from Britain and other friendly powers. The pre-State Jewish forces, on the contrary, had been prevented from acquiring arms by the British and so had no matching artillery, no tanks, and no warplanes in the first days of the war.
Supplies of weapons arrived in the days that followed, however, and turned the tide. Little more than small arms - in paucity- had been available to the Haganah which on May 28, 1948 was to merge with other Jewish defense groups to form the Israel Defense Forces. The Irgun Zeva'i Le'ummi and the Lohamei Herut Israel agreed to cease their independent activities, (except in Jerusalem) and to absorb their members into the newly founded IDF.
Invaded from all directions, Israel had to cope with the outbreak of a thousand fires, and to do so with limited means. Numerous settlement outposts in the Galilee and the Negev were isolated, open on all sides to Arab attack, and had to rely on their own perseverance and meager armories to stave off defeat. The hastily mobilized army had to engage in offensive action to remove the enemy from key positions, block the advance of their columns, and rush to seal gaps in Israel's defenses.
This table is a summary of the forces estimated to be engaged in the 1948 war with Israel, based on available information:
| Country | Population | Armed Forces | Combat Deaths |
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| Egypt | 35,000,000 | 300,000 | 2,000 |
| TransJordan | 1,000,000 | 60,000 | 1,000 |
| Syria | 6,000,000 | 300,000 | 1,000 |
| Iraq | ??? | 10,000 (in Israel) | 500 |
| Lebanon | ??? | ??? | 500 |
| Palestinian Arabs | 1,250,000 | 50,000 | 3,000 |
| Israel | 650,000 | 140,000 | 6,000 |
Although the Israelis mobilized almost their entire military age population, the imbalance in numbers is very clear, even without considering additional support from Saudi Arabia and other countries allied with the Arab League; the imbalance in war material was even more unfavorable to the Israelis. But the Israelis had the fervor that came from knowing they only had one chance to succeed or die in the attempt. There was no alternative to victory.
The reborn State of Israel was aided by Jewish volunteers from around the world (called the Machal) who left their civilian lives and made their way along a clandestine route to help. Although small in number, about 3500, they were a tremendous asset in skills and morale for the tiny, struggling Israeli military.
The Security Council issued several calls for a cease-fire, but the Arabs ignored them. Even after a strongly-worded Resolution of May 29, 1948 ordering a four-week cease-fire, they went on fighting, and it took lengthy negotiations by the UN Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte to bring the truce into force on June 11th. Towards the end of the four weeks, the Council appealed to the parties to prolong the truce. Israel responded, but the Arabs did not, and hostilities were resumed on July 9, 1948. On the southern front, the Egyptians resumed hostilities one day before the expiry of the truce.
The War proceeded through the rest of 1948 with a series of truces, frequently broken, to the negotiated agreements that ended the war in 1949. Fighting ended with a cease-fire January 7, 1949 and the War of Independence was formally terminated on July 20, 1949 with the signing of the Israel-Syria armistice agreement.
Throughout the latter phases of the war, Israel gained strength, fought successfully and not only ejected the invading Arab forces, but also captured and held some 5,000 sq. km. over and above the areas allocated to it by the United Nations in the original partition plan, with a considerable improvement in defensible borders.
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