The Haj - Leon Uris [102]
Kaukji moved his troops into Palestine to the all-Arab city of Nablus, which had been the site of ancient Shechem of biblical distinction. The British in the area closed their eyes to the presence of the Irregulars.
COMMUNIQUÉ #14, ARAB ARMY OF LIBERATION, JANUARY 25, 1948
Praise Allah, the compassionate, the merciful. As its final training exercise under combat conditions, small units practiced in the area of Tirat Tsvi Kibbutz. It was necessary to engage in these war games to familiarize our troops with their weapons and our tactics. The exercise was an unparalleled success. We toyed around with the kibbutz for several hours, probing and using various maneuvers which we will employ in future combat. I declare the Arab Army of Liberation now ready to crush many Jewish settlements. Victory over the Zionist dogs is at hand.
F. Kaukji, Field Marshal,
Arab Army of Liberation
Just about the same time, Abdul Kadar Heusseini’s Army of the Jihad went into its initial action. The target was a surprise to no one. The Etzion Bloc lay in all-Arab territory in the jagged hills and valleys of Judea, halfway between Bethlehem and Hebron.
Abdul Kadar did not attack but held back and pumped fire into the settlements. His aim was siege: to starve them and force them out of ammunition. This could be accomplished because of a British promise of nonintervention and because the mountain road to the Bloc was easily ambushed.
The Palmach, already stretched to breaking, managed to spare three dozen men, who worked their way into the Bloc under cover of darkness. With their arrival, Jewish resistance stiffened. As the siege continued, supplies ran perilously low. It became incumbent upon the command in Jerusalem to either give up the Bloc or try to get a convoy of supplies through to them.
The convoy was formed. As soon as it left Jerusalem, it was in ‘Apache’ territory, with every house in every village a potential gun post and every turn in the tortuous mountain terrain a potential ambush point. The convoy reached the Bloc, but was trapped on its return trip. All forty men and their armor-plated trucks were destroyed.
Abdul Kadar then probed the perimeters of the Bloc and came to the realization that any final attack would have to end in a bayonet-tipped, hand-to-hand fight. With his own men growing bored and wary, he withdrew.
Both Abdul Kadar and Kaukji had failed in their initial thrusts. But the Jews were taking casualties, losses they could not sustain with their meager reserves. In Jerusalem it had become the day of the bomber. British soldier-deserters, thinly disguised as Arabs, assisted in a number of terrible bombings. One car bomb destroyed the Jewish Agency Headquarters, while another bomb got the Palestine Post. A third bomb was planted in the heart of the Jewish business district and went off without warning in a crowded midday explosion, taking an awful toll of civilians.
Retaliations by the Irgun and the Haganah destroyed Arab headquarters in both Jaffa and Jerusalem.
It was a time of the boom, the bouncing earth, shattering glass and flying debris, of screams and blood and sirens. Of people being dismembered and packed into bags.
When the British withdrew from their Tegart fort in the Arab city of Nazareth, Kaukji moved in and claimed it as his headquarters. The town was largely populated by Christian Arabs who had decided not to get involved in the fighting on either side. Unable to recruit or get cooperation, he turned his men loose on a spree of looting and intimidation. Many of Nazareth’s churches were broken into and sacred relics were carted off. The Christian Arabs taunted him to return to battle and get out of their city.
Across the border, Kaukji had serious problems as well. His original backers, consisting of financiers, Arab organizations, and governments, were losing their enthusiasm.
As he became frantic for a victory, he knew it would have to be a major one. This time he selected an objective of vital strategic value to silence his critics. Kibbutz