The Haj - Leon Uris [108]
Using years of intelligence gathered by Gideon Asch, units of the Har El Brigade splintered, traversed the treacherous landscape by night, and seized many of the key points along the road, ejecting the Arab Irregulars.
At the same time, a company of eighty Har El men inched its way up the long, steep hill to the Kastel undetected. They were able to effect total surprise. The battle was over in minutes and the villagers took flight.
With the Kastel momentarily in Jewish hands, a frenzied, around-the-clock operation ensued. Supplies were loaded aboard trucks all over Jewish Palestine.
By April 30, three large convoys had slugged their way into Jerusalem.
Word of the capture of the Kastel flashed from Arab villages to Jerusalem with disbelief. A fever instantly swept over the Arab community all the way down to Tabah. Although Haj Ibrahim gave no blessings and declined to join, dozens of his fellahin rushed to answer the call to retake the Kastel.
When enough men had gathered at the base of the hill, they charged up haphazardly, only to be hurled back. Without a determined and knowledgeable leader to rally them, the Arabs became unable to organize or sustain a drive and, after some further long-range potshots, they drifted off back to their homes.
Abdul Kadar Heusseini came under immediate pressure to retake the Kastel, which had been turned over to a unit of ninety older Haganah reservists from Jerusalem. Within a few days after losing the Kastel, Abdul Kadar assembled a force of Jihad men, deployed them intelligently, and moved up the hill cautiously and under covering fire. He established positions in secure places and pinned down the outnumbered Jewish defenders.
A desperate call went out that their ammunition was perilously low. They could not hold off an Arab attack. At that time, a tramp steamer had gotten through the British blockade. Its cargo of arms was quickly unloaded and a truck made it as far up the Bab el Wad as possible. When it was stopped by an Arab ambush, a dozen Palmach removed fifty thousand rounds and took a circuitous route into the hills. They slipped through Abdul Kadar’s lines when the defenders were virtually down to their last bullet.
Abdul Kadar ordered an attack, with himself at the head of his troops. They were hit with a sudden barrage and the field was strewn with their dead. The Irregulars withdrew and the Haganah sent out a patrol to examine the field. Among the Arab dead, they discovered the body of Abdul Kadar Heusseini.
Every Arab village from Hebron to Nablus rushed men to the Kastel by taxi, bus, car, and truck. Half the fellahin of Tabah—save Haj Ibrahim—were in the mass that surged up the hill in a human tidal wave.
The Jewish commander kicked his weary men awake, threw boxes of ammunition to them, fired his gun, cursed them, shouted orders. They simply could not shoot fast enough to stop the Arab surge and they retreated.
The emotion that had triggered the Arab rampage now erupted into pure grief upon locating the body of their fallen leader. Firing into the air, weeping madly, and shouting oaths, they carried the martyr down and took him to Jerusalem. In one of the most bizarre incidents of the war, the Arabs left only a handful of men to defend the Kastel, for they had really come for the purpose of finding Abdul Kadar. The Haganah quickly returned and this time they stayed.
The funeral of Abdul Kadar, whose open pine coffin was passed over the heads of tens of thousands of hysterical Arabs, was an ultimate display of Moslem rage and grief. They swarmed through the Damascus Gate into the Old City, jamming every inch of the thin alleyways, and accorded him the ultimate honor of burying him on the Haram esh Sharif near the Dome of the Rock.
When their burst of anguish and anger had simmered, the villagers of Tabah became shatteringly sobered.