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Siege of Jerusalem
Part of Israeli War of Independence
Date November 9, 1947 - July 18 1948 Location Jerusalem, Israel Result Israeli forces lifted the siege of western Jerusalem, Transjordanians conquered the Old City and northern districts and destroyed the Jewish Quarter. The city was divided for 19 years.
Belligerents
Israel, Jewish militias: (Haganah, Irgun, Lehi) British officers with the Israeli force	Transjordan Army of the Holy War Arab Liberation Army British officers seconded to Transjordan Egypt
Commanders and leaders
David Shaltiel	Sir Alan Cunningham Mohammad Amin al-Husayni Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni Anwar Nusseiba , General Sir John Bagot Glubb Pasha
Strength
1,500-3,000 men	6,000 Jordanian troops 2,000 Egyptian troops 500 Palestinian militia
Casualties and losses
700 military dead, 3,300 civilian dead (approx.)	unknown

The siege of Jerusalem was a complex series of military events beginning on December 1, 1947 and lasting through July 10, 1948. The siege was initiated by local Palestinian Arab militias immediately after the United Nations adopted a resolution ordering partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. According to the plan, Jerusalem was supposed to be an international zone, surrounded on all sides by the Arab state. From May 15, following the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and the declaration of the state of Israel, the Palestinian militias were joined by the Transjordan Arab Legion, assisted by British officers, and by the Egyptian Army, which invaded into Palestine.

The intention of besieging forces was to isolate the 100,000 Jewish residents of the city from the rest of the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine. In particular, the Arab forces tried to cut off the road to Jerusalem from the coastal plain, where the majority of the Jewish population resided. The main road between Latrun and Jerusalem, nowadays part of Highway 1, passed through Bab al-Wad, a narrow valley surrounded by Arab villages on hills on both sides. The Arabs also cut off the water pipe to Jerusalem. Convoys of armoured vehicles which carried supply to the Jewish population were repeatedly attacked on the road to Jerusalem, inflicting heavy casualties and bringing the Jewish residents to the brink of starvation. Several operations that were held by Jewish military forces in April and May 1948 in attempt to seize control of the strategic "corridor" brought only temporary relief. In late May and early June the Israeli forces were able to build a bypass road through the Judean Hills called the Burma Road, which was opened to traffic on June 10, thus ending the siege.

Background

• Geography
• Population
• The 1947 partition plan and the Corpus separatum
• Arab Political Leadership
• British policy to frustrate the Corpus Separatum, e.g. Operation Chaos

War of the Roads

• Resupply columns
• Fall of Atarot and Neve Yaakov
• Near famine in the city
• Battle of Kastel
• Deir Yassin Massacre
• Hadassah medical convoy massacre

The Bombing Campaign

• The bomb maker, Fawzi al-Kutab
• Ben Yehuda Street
• Palestine Post
• Jewish Agency

Jewish Counter-Attack

• Fall of Katamon and San Simon Monastery

The Siege of the Jewish Quarter

• Jewish Quarter is Besieged
• British lock in inhabitants
• Arab Legion takes the Quarter and blows it up, including the Hurva Synagogue

Battle of Gush Etzion

• Siege and fall of Gush Etzion kibbutzim, the Kfar Etzion massacre.

The British Evacuation

• Fall of Bevingrad

The Battle of Latrun

• Haganah failure to occupy the concrete Taggart fort at Latrun overlooking the Tel Aviv highway, and its subsequent occupation by the Arab Legion, newly assigned to Transjordan.
• Failed attempts to clear the road.
• Critical involvement of British military personnel, and their withdrawal.

The Burma Road

• Arrival of Mickey Marcus
• Engineering the road
• End of the blockade

The Battle of Ramat Rachel

• Egyptian Army repeatedly takes and loses control of Ramat Rachel
• Egyptian Army cut off by fall of Beersheba.

The Partition of Jerusalem

• Armistice and division of the city along ethnic and religious lines
• Mandelbaum Gate
• Isolation of Mount Scopus
• Isolation of Jewish holy places, including the Western Wall

Lasting Effects

• Diplomatic isolation of the city
• Travel restrictions
• Decline of Christian population in Jordanian sector
• Outbreak of 1967 Six Day War

Revisionism

• Disappearance of the siege from history
• Views of Arab and pro-Arab writers

Testimonies

• Dov Joseph (1960) The Faithful City. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• John Roy Carlson (1951) From Cairo to Damascus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Bibliography

• Larry Collins & Dominique LaPierre (1972) O Jerusalem. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• ((he)) Levi, Ytzhak, Nine Measures: The Battles for Jerusalem in the War of Independence, Ma'arachot, 1986.

• Articles needing cleanup from September 2007
• Articles with sections that need to be turned into prose from September 2007
• Battles and operations of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• History of Jerusalem