The Jews had won their first real victory of the War of Liberation. (
In the Jerusalem corridor the Hillmen Brigade of the Palmach performed titans’ work to keep the road open. This gang of teenagers, with commanders in their twenties, patrolled the deep gorges and wilds of Judea, making fierce hit-and-run raids on Arab villages in conjunction with convoy runs. They frequently worked around the clock until they were numb with exhaustion, yet they could always be goaded on to one more patrol, one more raid, one more hike through the fierce country.
“In this wadi King David also lived as a guerrilla fighter!” The bloodshot eyes of the Palmach youngsters recorded fatigue as they roused to still another effort.
“Remember, you are fighting at the place where Samson was born!”
“In this valley David met Goliath!”
“Here Joshua made the sun stand still!”
At night the Bible was read to the exhausted warriors as a source of inspiration for the superhuman efforts the next day would call forth. Here, in Kadar’s territory, the fighting was hard and eonstant and the Arabs had confidence behind a strong leader.
An enormous convoy mustered in Tel Aviv for another all-out effort to save Jerusalem. The Hillmen Brigade’s job was to take the Arab village of Kastel, built on a Crusader fort dominating one of the main heights of the highway.
The storming of Kastel became the first Jewish offensive action in the War of Liberation. The brigade made a sheer-guts attack, crawling up the treacherous incline under cover of friendly darkness. They reached the peak of the Kastel bloodied and weary but threw themselves into hand-to-hand combat and threw the Arabs out.
Kastel lifted the flagging spirits of the Yishuv. Following the victory, the huge convoy from Tel Aviv battled every inch of the way through the Bab el Wad, slogged on through to New Jerusalem, and again brought vital relief to the beleaguered Jews.
Kawukji summoned Mohammed Kassi, the Huleh commander of the irregulars, from Fort Esther to headquarters in Nablus. E-32 489
Kawukji was frantic for a victory. For months he had been writing communiques boasting of triumph after triumph. As the “general” of the Mufti, Kawukji had nourished the dream of commanding an Arab army that spread from the borders of Turkey to the Rock of Gibraltar. He blamed “British intervention” as the reason he had been unable to win a Jewish settlement. When the British pulled out of the Huleh area he had no alibi left.
Kawukji kissed Mohammed Kassi on both cheeks in the accustomed. style and they spoke at great lengths of their glorious victories. Kassi told of how he had “conquered” Fort Esther, and Kawukji described how he had weakened Tirat Tsvi and Mishmar Haemek with brilliant probing tactics.
“I have received a message from his Holiness, the Mufti in Damascus,” Kawukji said. “On May 15, the day after the British terminate the mandate, Haj Amin el Husseini will make a triumphant return to Palestine.”
“And what a magnificent day that shall be for all of Islam,” Mohammed Kassi nodded.
“His Holiness has selected Safed as his temporary capital until the Zionists are completely exterminated. Now that the dear friend of the Jews, Major Hawks, is gone from Safed, we will have it within a week.”
“I am delighted to hear such news!”
“However,” Kawukji continued, “Safed will not be truly safe and fit for the return of his Holiness so long as a single Jew remains in the Huleh Valley. They hold a dagger in our backs. We must erase them.”
Mohammed Kassi turned slightly pale.
“The Huleh, I believe, is in your command, my brother. I want you to capture Gan Dafna at once. As soon as Gan Dafna falls we will have the rest of the Huleh Zionists by the throat.”
“Generalissimo, let me assure you that each and every one of my volunteers is a man filled with the courage of a lion and is dedicated to the noble cause of crushing Zionism. They have all vowed to fight to the last drop of blood.”
“Good. They are costing us almost a dollar a month in pay alone.”
Kassi stroked his beard and held up his forefinger with its large jeweled ring. “However! It is well known that Major Hawks left three thousand rifles, a hundred machine guns, and dozens of heavy mortars at Gan Dafna!”
Kawukji sprang to his feet.
“You cringe before children!”
“I swear by Allah’s beard that the Jews have sent in a 490
thousand Palmach reinforcements. I have seen them with my own eyes.”
Kawukji slapped Mohammed Kassi twice across the face. “You will lay open Gan Dafna, you will level it to the ground, and you will wash your hands in their blood or I will set your carcass out for the vultures!”
CHAPTER FIVE: Mohammed Kassi’s first move was to send a hundred of his men into Abu Yesha. Immediately some of the villagers went down to kibbutz Ein Or to report the fact to Ari. Ari knew that the people of Abu Yesha were predominantly with the Jews. He waited for them to act.
The Arabs of Abu Yesha resented the presence of the irregulars. They had been neighbors of the people of Yad El for decades; their homes had been built by the Jews. They were not angry and had no desire to fight and they looked to Taha, their muktar, to rally them and eject Kassi’s men.
Taha kept a strange silence, speaking neither for nor against the coming of the irregulars. When the elders of Abu Yesha urged him to unite the people, Taha refused to discuss the matter. His silence sealed the fate of Abu Yesha, for the fellaheen were helpless without leadership. They quietly submitted to the occupation.
Kassi was quick to capitalize on Taha’s passive acquiescence. Day by day his men became bolder and more unruly as Taha continued his silence. The road to Gan Dafna was cut. There was anger in Abu Yesha but it was no more than grumbling on an individual level. Then four Abu Yesha Arabs were caught by the irregulars running food up to Gan Dafna. Kassi had them killed, decapitated, and their heads put on display in the village square as a warning. From that point on Abu Yesha was completely subdued.
Ari had guessed wrong. He had felt sure that the people of Abu Yesha would force Taha to take a stand, especially with the safety of Gan Dafna at stake. Their failure to act and the closing of the road put him in a terrible position.
The road shut, Kassi’s ponderous mountain guns began an around-the-clock shelling of Gan Dafna from Fort Esther.
The Jews had trained for this sort of thing at Gan Dafna from the day the place was opened. Everyone knew his job. They switched onto emergency footing quickly and quietly.
All children over the age of ten were assigned to an active part in the village defense. The water tank had been sandbagged and the power generators, medical supplies, arsenal, and food stores had been installed underground.
491
Life went on as usual in the dank bunkers. School classes, dining, games, and all routine functions continued below the ground. Sleeping quarters were shelf-like bunks in dormitories built inside sections of twelve-feet-diameter concrete water pipes which had been sunk deeply into the earth and covered with yards of dirt and sandbags.
Whenever the shelling outside stopped, the children and staff came out from the bunkers to play, stretch their cramped muscles, and to take care of the lawns and gardens.
Within a week the staff had made it seem that the whistling shells and explosions were merely another minor unpleasantness of daily living.
Down at Ein Or kibbutz, Ari faced the problem. All the settlements must depend on their own defense systems, but Gan Dafna held six hundred children and stood in the most vulnerable place, there beneath Fort Esther. There was enough food for a month, and the water supply would be ample if the tank was not hit. Fuel would become a problem. It was extremely cold during the nights in the mountains and Ari knew that Dr. Lieberman would rather freeze than cut down the precious trees for burning. Communications from Gan Dafna were maintained by blinker light to Yad El; the telephone line had been cut. The children’s village was so completely cut off that the only way it, could be reached was by a dangerous and grueling climb up the west face of the mountain, more than two thousand feet, which had to be negotiated by night.