User:Padres Hana/Kfar Etzion reading list

1948
27th March

Eric Dowton

The first battle ended this evening when British troops rescued the survivors of the Jewish convoy which was trapped near Solomon’s Pools, a mile or so from Bethlehem. Greatly outnumbered, the Jews had fought off constant attacks. They received supplies and assistance from the Jewish planes, which went into action for the first time, attacking and bombing the Arabs and dropping food, water and ammunition to the defenders. Throughout Saturday night Haganah relief forces from Jerusalem tried to break past the Arabs, but the steep, boulder-strewn hills gave cover to the attacking guerrillas, and the relief forces were forced back. A British task force was also compelled to return to Jerusalem on Saturday night after encountering roads heavily mined and obstructed by many blocks. The battle near Bethlehem began on Saturday morning after a convoy of forty trucks with a heavy guard of Haganah troops - men and women - had made a surprise dash from Jerusalem to the isolated Jewish colony Kfar and Zion in the hills eight miles north of Hebron. They delivered their cargo of goods and munitions, but ran into a trap on the return journey. The Arabs had blocked the road with piles of rocks at short intervals, and also laid extensive minefields, while hundreds of guerrillas lay in wait on the steep hillsides. Half the convoy returned to Kfar and Zion, while the remainder tried to plough forward under heavy fire. The Jews made a stand in a large stone house in the valley near Solomon’s Pools, ranging some of their trucks around the building to form a defence perimeter. Armoured cars of the Light Guards with two-pounder guns and troops of the Suffolk Regiment broke through Arab road blocks to the scene of the fighting. Some 200 British troops took up position a mile and a half from the besieged Jews, but did not intervene. The Arabs warned the British if they tried to help the Jews they would be attacked. Meanwhile, British HQ in Jerusalem arranged a truce with Arab leaders. By this means 100 Haganah men and 10 women were rescued from the stone house. The Jews armed with rifles and sten guns, appeared cautiously at the doorway when the British reached the house. The Arab fire stopped, but hundreds of riflemen came from the surrounding hills. They were kept off by the British and the Jews came out and were protected by the British troops. The Jews had been in radio contact with the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. They were told that the terms of the truce were that arms must be surrendered. At first they refused to give up their arms, but eventually handed them over to the British. The Jews in the besieged house had suffered 50 per cent casualties. Forty-five wounded lay crowded on the floors. There were also the bodies of four dead. The Haganah leader in the house said : ‘We had about ten women among us in the house, but none of them were hurt. Although bullets were whizzing all night long and causing mounting casualties. We had no food, as only seven or eight of our lorries managed to reach the house, and we formed them into a protective barrier. We started out with 35 lorries and 14 armoured cars, and now we are left with seven or eight lorries and about six armoured cars. The rest were wrecked by the Arabs.’ When the rescued Jews were loaded on to army lorries and ambulances there were found to be 210, according to a senior police officer with the army convoy.

Tuesday 13th April

Eric Downton, Jerusalem, Monday - A Jewish aircraft was shot down by men of the Life Guards to-day during an engagement between military and Jews near Kfar Etzion, in the Hebron area 12 miles south-west of Jerusalem. The pilot was killed. The ‘plane was a two-seater Auster. It was officially reported to have fired on British troops and a unit of the Arab Legion before it was brought down by machine-gun fire from armoured vehicles. Fighting began when an Arab Legion convoy was passing near the Jewish colony at Kfar Etzion. The Arabs claimed that they were fired on by the Jews. The Jews say the Arabs fired first. Jewish armoured cars as well as Haganah troops stationed around the colony joined in the combat, and the Arab Legion sent a message for help. A small “flying column” of the Life Guards in armoured vehicles was sent from Jerusalem. Ten Jewish armoured cars took part in the battle which developed, and small arms fire also came from Jewish positions in Kfar Etzion. The Jewish aircraft appeared and machine-gunned the military and the Arab Legion before the Life Guards brought it down near Kfar Etzion.

Wednesday 14th April

It is now learned that the Jewish aircraft reported to have been shot down yesterday made a forced landing at Kfar Etzion after being fired on by military.

Thursday 13th May

Troops of the Arab Legion, with armoured cars and light artillery are reported to-day to be taking part in a heavy attack against Kfar Etzion, a group of Jewish settlements five miles south-east of Bethlehem.

Friday 14th May

Haganah announced last night that the Kfar Etzion settlements, near Hebron, had been “split” by an Arab attack and that Arab Legion forces had penetrated into Kfar Etzion itself. Informed sources said that the Arabs had heavy artillery and armoured cars.

Saturday 15th May

Lovett Edwards, Haifa

Speaking of the Arab Legion’s attack at Kfar Etzion, between Hebron and Jerusalem, which is the first major Arab success, Moshe Shertok said “The British must explain the action of the Legion. British officers are commanding it, and the British are financing it with money they can ill-afford.” Until such matters as this were explained, he did not believe that normal relations would be possible.

Tuesday 18th May

Patrick O'Donovan, Tel Aviv, Monday

South of the Holy City, Kfar Etzion has fallen. It is the first settlement to be captured. It was taken by the Arab legion after five days of fighting. The Red Cross evacuated some 150 women and children, and now there is silence. There are no prisoners; no one has escaped. Inevitably that fate awaits other settlements.

1949
Koestler, Arthur (1949) ''Promise and Fulfilment. Palestine 1917-1949.''

page 158 - ... on Jaunuary 17 a unit of 35 Haganah men rushed to the relief of Kfar Etzion in the Hebron area was surrounded by Arab irregulars and killed to the last man.

page 162 - The other four settlements, known as the Kfar Eftzion (sic) group, were situated in the purely Arab area between Bethlehem and Hebron. They had been cut off, and constantly attacked for three months by irregulars reinforced by troops of the Arab Legion ; supply convoys trying to fight their way through to them had suffered the heaviest casualties in the whole battle of the convoys. On May 13 Kfar Eftzion fell to the Arab Legion ; the next day the remaining three settlements surrendered. The surviving settlers were sent by the Arab Legion as "prisoners of war" to Amman ; - this was probably the only action of the Government which might be interpreted as as implementation of the United Nations' Partition resolution. [footnote: ... "Arab bands who had no legal status" ...]

1950
Levin, Harry (1950) Jerusalem Embattled - A diary of the city under siege. (1997 edition).

page 147 - 13 May: One day to go. Kfar Etzion has fallen. In the circumstances it was doomed. But one hoped that somehow ... One's heart is heavy. Yet one does not morn. There was so much courage. Of its 164 men and women, at least 62 are dead, 42 seriously wounded. All four settlements of the Bloc had a combined defending force of 500, of whom 100 were women. The Legion attacked with 2 battlions of infantry, 2000 irregulars, 20 tanks and 20 gun-carriers and armoured cars. Sixty thousand Arabs inhabit the district and groups of them kept coming over all day and night to join in the fighting.

A few details of the desperate battle have come through to the Mateh. Monastry Hill, Kfar Etzion's advance post, was held by 26 men for six hours against hundreds of Legionnares, three 25-pounder guns, 6 Sherman tanks, 6 gun-carriers, seven 3-inch mortars; it fell when only one officer and two men were left. The column of 18 tanks that attacked Kfar Etzion village was repulsed 16 times; when the Legion overran the settlement the settlers fell back fighting towards the second settlement of the Bloc, Massuoth.

I saw some of their wireless messages: The last one was:"Hand-to-hand fighting. Tanks penetrated our rear into the farm-yard....Overrunning the dining-room and children's house....Swarming in from all sides...." Late last night a wireless message from Massuoth: "We broke through the Arab lines and rescued Kfar Etzion's survivors. Kfar Etzion buildings all burning." This afternoon the remaining three settlements are locked in a savage battle, each cut off from its neighbours. They are finished; they must have known it yesterday. The Red Cross was asked to arrange evacuations of the wounded men and girls from the settlements, but so far without result.

Jaffa has fallen,... [etc]

Hurnard, Hannah (1997) ''Watchmen on the Walls. An Eyewitness Account of Israel's Fight for Independence from the Journal of Hannah Hurnard.''

When I reached the hospital, the ambulances were already bringing in the Jewish dead and wounded from the Kfar Etz-Zion group in the Hebron District. They surrendered last night [13 May] after the Arab Legion broke through their defenses. All the Jewish men settlers were killed, even those who surrendered, and the largest of the settlements was burned to the ground. The radio said that the big Arab town of Jaffa had surrendered to the Jews and signed a treaty.

1951
Carlson, John Ray (1951) Cairo to Damascus.

page 171 - With foolhardy courage, the Haganah had sent a large convoy to supply Kfar Etzion - a chain of four kibbutzim - perched on a strategic hilltop commanding the roads to Jerusalem from the South. [descritpiom of Nebi Daniel ambush. Continues to page 172 - 12 Haganah and 135 Arabs killed. "To the Jews it meant the loss of almost their entire fleet of armored trunks in Jerusalem." Photographs of naked dead Haganah for sale in Jerusalem the following day.]

pages 184-186 - [On back of lorry carrying ten large drums of gasoline and six crates of oranges. 14 April 1948. ] We passed Bethlehem and neared Kibbutz Kfar Etzion with about twenty gas-splattered hitch-hikers perched like buzzards all over the truck. That it held together was a tribute to the genius of its American maker. Five hundred yards from Kfar Etzion we halted again: tracer bullets from the Jews would have blown us all sky high. We waited for an armored car to come along and act as military escort for us until we passed the Jewish settlement. Presently one came roaring behind us. We let it go ahead and followed close behind. Beyond the settlement the road sloped. Down the hill we now dashed in a mad, suicidal flight at some seventy miles an hour. I wondered which would be easier - crashing or roasting to death. To my surprise we ran this gauntlet, too, without a shot. To my greater suprise, the truck still held together. I thought the Jews were asleep at Kfar Etzion, but I soon learned they were holding their fire for bigger game.

We met the convoy a minute after running the Jewish gauntlet. As the armored trucks reached the hilltop we had just left, the Jews opened with a barrage. Watching the battle from a safe distance, I realized suddenly that our truck had missed being caught in the line of fire, let alone risking a head-on smashup on the narrow road, by a matter of seconds!

As the Jews began to fire, the convoy stopped, and the armored cars began firing. With a display of excellent discipline and marksmanship, the Arab Legion scored four hits on the Jewish stronghold. Kfar Etzion guns were silenced in clouds of dust, smoke, and debris. The fight was over in a half hour and the convoy resumed its journey. I saw one Arab vehicle smoking. Three Arabs were reported dead. While the fighting was going on, Moustafa and I ran over freshly plowed fields to get a closer view. But we dared move only when we saw a protecting rockpile or fence. [...account of ride in small armoured car with dead Arab Legionnaire.]

page 219 - We reached a hilltop: below us spread a deep-green valley. [...] To our right were the four kibbutzim composing the Kfar Etzion block.

pages 239,240 - Far better than I, the defenders of Kfar Etzion had tasted the sting of Legion guns. They, too, knew the truth. . . . For weeks these settlers in their hilltop kibbutzim had beaten back assaults by the Arab Legion and guerrilla bands. At four a.m. on May 12 - two days before the Mandate's end - guerrillas joined with Arabs from Hebron and the Arab Legion to launch an all-out attack on Kfar Etzion with two battalions and two thousand irregulars. They hammered at the isolated communtiy and its 164 men and women defenders, with cannon, mortars, and heavy machine-guns. The tanks charged sixteen times, followed by wave after wave of howling fanatics, Kfar Etzion sent desperate calls: "Tanks penetrated our rear into the farmyard. . . .Overrunning the dining-room and children's house. . . .Swarming in from all sides." Ferocious hand-to-hand fighting followed. When Kfar Etzion fell, the Arabs found sixty-two dead, forty-two gravely wounded, and three survivours. The rest had fled to the three adjoining kibbutzim - making a combined defensive force of about 350 Jews.

In the next few days these kibbutzim, too, underwent Kfar Etzion's fate. After their surrender they were pundered and burned. Thus ended the tragic saga of Kfar Etzion, the first major triumph of the British-trained, British armed, British led, so-called Arab Legion - [...] On the night of May 13 [...] I stood watching the burning buildings of Kfar Etzion glowering against the sky.

page 289 - The determined resistance of the Kfar Etzion kibbutzim (controlling the road over which Egypt planned to bring reinforcements) was the first factor to upset the Arab timetable; [...]

1952
Sacher, Harry (1952) ''Israel. The Establishment of a State.''.

page 202 - On the 11th (November 1947) a Jewish convoy to the Kfar Etzion settlements on the Hebron road was attacked.[...] On the 12th another convoy to Kfar Etzion was attacked and nine Jews were killed, etc.

page 203 - Kfar Etzion was completely surrounded by Arab territory, and all along the road from Jerusalem to the sea. The operations were under the command of Palestinian Arabs, and the men in part villagers who could devote a few hours to murder and loot, and then retire to their homes. page 219 - On the south, halfway to Hebron, was the Kafr Etzion complex of Jewish settlements with a thousand inhabitants.

page 224 - He [Colonel Shaltier - on situation February 1948] concluded by making the following specific recommendations: complete evacuation of Kfar Etzion, which would add 400 men with their arms to the force in Jerusalem; etc.

page 225 - Kfar Etzion had succesfully fought off attacks by 2,000 men, and could be expected to hold out, as did other places. [in context of Shaltier discussion] [...] A week later (from 4 December) a Jewish convoy to Kfar Etzion was attacked and ten Jews were killed. The next day another convoy to Kfar Etzion was attacked and nine Jews were killed.

page 229 - On 13th May, two days before the British evacuation, the Kfar Etzion bloc was finally stormed by the Arab Legion, which, according to Mr. Bevin's pledge, should have been in Transjordsan. They attacked with 25-pounder guns, Sherman tanks, gun carriers, mortars. In 1924 some Jews had bought land fourteen miles south of Jerusalem on the Hebron road, but it was not settled till 1936, and then only by thirty labourers who leased a house and other buildings from the Russsian Church. They began to clear the stony land, and to plant vines and fruit trees, and they gave their settlement the name Kfar Etzion. During the Arab rising of 1936-39 the labourers left and Arabs uprooted the plantations. In 1940 the Jewish National Fund took over the land, and later increased its area. They bought a farm and buildings from a German missionary society in Jerusalem, and in August 1943 settled there a group of Mizrachi (othodox) workers. By 1946 there was a thriving village. Over 100,000 trees had been planted, vegetables were being raised, field crops sown, and cattle and poultry raised, and a rest house was established for religious Jews. The next step was to establish a sister-settlement (Massiot Yitzak) hard by in 1946. In the autumn of 1946 a third settlement was founded, and then in 1947 a fourth, which was occuppied by Hashomer Hazair, Left Wing Labour men and women, all of whom belonged to the Palmach, the crack section of the Hagana. The first three villages constituted a triangular group within a mile or a mile and a half from one another. The fourth, Ein Tsarim, was rather farther away.

When the U.N. Assembly passed the Partition Resolution of 29th November, 1947, it soon became apparent that Kfar Etzion's Arab neighbours of Hebron, Bethlehem and Jerusalem would take the offensive. The settlers began to prepare defences, but their villages were dispersed, they were a long way from Jerusalem, they were surrounded by Arabs, and they were dependent on supplies brought by convoy through a dangerous country. Prudence might have dictated evacuation, but the maintenance of frontier posts had been adopted as a general policy. Soon a convoy was ambushed with the loss of ten men. A troop of thirty-five men who tried to reach the blockaded settlement was destroyed to a man. In April 1948 a convoy with two companies of Hagana was ambushed near Bethlehem on its way back from Kfar Etxion, and the remnant was saved by the intervention of British troops.From that moment Kfar Etxion was completely isolated. It was the Legion's artillery and tanks which won the victory. The total garrison numbered 400 men and 100 women. If evacuation had been adopted all these and those who had been lost on the convoys would have been available for operations in Jerusalem, and it is probable that they would have sufficed to enable the Jews to take the whole of that city. Strategical considerations were sacrificed to ideological.

page 262 - Kfar Etzion had no strategic significance at all. It was isolated and compeltely surrounded by Arab territory. In the vain attempt to hold it hundreds of men were lost, killed, wounded, prisoners, together with all the armoured cars of the Jerusalem front and much invaluable arms.

1956
O'Ballance, Edgar (1956) ''The Arab-Israeli War. 1948''.

page 33 - On December 11th a Jewish convoy to the Kfar Etzion group of settlements, south of Jerusalem, was attacked on the Hebron road, and in another attack the following day, on a convoy to the same place, 9 Jews were killed.

page 52 - Engulfed by Arab terrirory, in the New City of Jerusalem there were about 100,000 Jews; and isolated in the Jewish quarter of the Old City were another 1,700. Of the adjacent settlements there were two, Atarot and Nve Yacov, both just to the north, on the road to Ramallah, and both isolated, while to the south lay the Kfar Etzion group of settlements, also in similar circumstances.

page 54 - [Colonel Shaltiel. Following his appointment as commander of Jerusalem district, February 1948.] ... he estimated that he could hold the area of New Jerisalem then occuppied, and perhaps even to extend it whenever opportunity favoured him, but he did not consider it possible to continue to supply and support the outlying settlements. Therefore, he recommended that the Jews be withdrawn from the Old City, from Atarot, Nve Yacov and Kfar Etzion, and their garrisons be concentrated under him in the New City. If this was done, he said, he was confident that he could hold on, and as soon as reinforcements arrived he would be able to advance and take the territory as far south as Beit Jala and Bethlehem.

However, political considerations took priority, his recommmendations were rejected and he was told to continue to hold every inch of ground in Jewish possession, and to advance wherever possible. The Jewish higher command insisted that any evacuation, no matter how neccesary, would be bad for morale. Kfar Etzion had already held out for weeks, and there was little reason to doubt that both they, and other settlements, could continue to do so.

page 64 - The last action related in this chapter is that of the fall of the Kfar Etzion group of settlements. They were taken by soldiers of the Arab Legion, just before the mandate officially drew to a close, a fact which caused the Jews to accuse Britain of formally sanctioning, and even of openly abetting the attack. This was not so by any means. [...] But apart from the incident of Kfar Etzion, there is little evidence to substantiate this allegation.

page 65 - The Kfar Etzion group consisted of four Jewish settlements, which lay about fourteen miles south of Jerusalem, just off the Hebron Road. They had been in a state of siege for several weeks, and had to be supplied by convoy. They were garrisoned by about 400 members of the Haganah, and although they were invested, and on short rations, they had already repelled a number of attacks from the Arab irregulars and locals, and the Jewish political leaders considered that Colonel Shaltiel's anxiety for their security was unfounded. Although there was difficulty in getting supplies to them, and a small detachment of Haganah reinforcements which had tried to filter in was completely wiped out, it was thought that they should be at least able to hold out for the time being.

[Account of Nabi Daniel ambush (27 March) including four Austers used and that the Mayor of Bethlehem negotiated a cease fire allowing British to rescue survivours. Over forty killed and most of Jerusalem's armoured vehicles destroyed.]

page 66 - After that, vital supplies were sometimes smuggled through and sometimes dropped on the settlement by the Jewish light aircraft. The Arab irregulars surrounding them continued to press closely, but did not essay any more large-scale attempts to overrun the Jewish positions. The Jews were still aggressive and were of considerable nuisance value to Arab vehicles moving along the Hebron road.

That was the position when, on May 13th, two returning companies of the Arab Legion found the provocation too much for them and deployed to put in the the attack which took the settlements. The Arab Legion had some amoured cars and some 3-inch mortars and, assaulting on the conventional principle of holding fire and flanking attacks, they took the Jewish positions, one by one, the Haganah survivors being taken prisoner. The conduct of the Legionaires was very good, and they protected their prisoners from the irregulars and local Arabs who would have massacred them.

pages 67,68 - ... and their morale, already high, rose even higher. [list of Haganah successes] On the other hand, Mount Scopus and the Old City, as well as many other settlements up and down the country, were invested by the Arabs, and Kfar Etzion had fallen. [.. ..] The solitary success, that of Kfar Etzion, was a victory for the Arab Legion, rather than to the horde of irregulars and local Arabs who had been vainly hammering away at the settlements for weeks without any good result.

page 74 - [description of the Haganah "air section"] ... used to very good effect, supplies being dropped on isolated settlements such as Kfar Etzion and those in the Negev, [...]

1957
Glubb, Sir John Bagot (1957) A Soldier with the Arabs.

page 77 - While the Jewish colony of Nebi Yaqoub was so sited as to block the main road out of Jerusalem on the north, another group of colonies could close the road on the south between Bethlehem and Hebron. There were four Jewish colonies in this locality, the principal of which was Kafr Etzion. Unlike Nebi Yaqoub, this village was not actually on the main road; indeed, it was out of range of the road to small-arms fire. Within three hundred yards of the road, however, was an almost empty building belonging to the Orthodox Church. This building, which stood on an eminence, completely commanded the main road for a length of about a quarter of a mile. The Jews from Kafr Etzion occupied this building and proceeded to fire on all traffic using this road. The exact similarity between the Jewish action at Nebi Yaqoub and Kafr Etzion proved that all these strategic colonies were acting under orders.

page 78 - In the first half of May - the last fortnight before the end of the mandate - the British instructed us to draw a quantity of stores and vehicles from Egypt. It was our last chance to do so. With the end of the mandate, it was unlikely we should ever again be able to come and go to Egypt by road. Meanwhile, however, Kafr Etzion was in a position completely to block the road.

Moreover, according to the United Nations partition plan, the Kafr Etzion colonies were in the centre of a purely Arab area. They were in a position to cut off Hebron from Jerusalem after the end of the mandate. Our convoy from Egypt was due back two days before the end of the mandate. Jewish forces were already in many places operating inside the area allotted to the Arabs. We accordingly decided to remove the Kafr Etzion colonies before they could destroy our convoy and cut us off from Hebron.

Two days before the end of the mandate, the Arab Legion attacked Kafr Etzion with two companies, supported by four three-inch mortars. The colonies had been surrounded by belts of barbed wire and fairly extensive fields of mines. During the operation, Jewish troops from the coastal plain were dropped by parachute to reinforce the colony. Eventually all four ciolonies were captured and their garrisons transferred to Trans-Jordan. The Arab Legion treated all Jews as prisoners of war. As soon as the Arab Legion withdrew, the villagers of the Hebron district looted the Jewish colonies, leaving not one stone upon another. These colonies had been so aggressive that they had deliberately compelled Arab retaliation.

page 205 - On October 24th, The Israeli radio announced that their forces would shortly occupy Kfar Etzion, the former Jewish colony between Bethlehem and Hebron.

[page 211 - On October 31st, United Nations observers reported that the Israelis had killed thirty women and children at Dawaima, west of Hebron.]

1960
Joseph, Dov (1960) ''The Faithful City. The Siege of Jerusalem, 1948.''

page 29 - We had contrived training centers in Jerusalem - at the Teachers' Seminary in Bet Hakerem and at the Hebrew University - and in a few more distant settlements, one at the Dead Sea and one in the group of Jewish villages around Kfar Etzion.

pages 63,64 - Submachine guns and ammunition were also obtained from the Arabs themselves through Armenian intermediaries. One consignment was found to be of British and of Hagana manufacture; it was part of a transport of arms which had been captured by Arabs when the convoy was destroyed at Nebi Daniel.

page 70 - None of the beleaguered settlements across the country were watched by Jerusale woth the same attention and anxiery as Kfar Etzion and the adjoining Jewish settlements, high in the mountains near Hebron. Dominating the main route from Jerusalem to the Negev, they had always been alonely outpost of Jewish farmers in a region whicj was heavily populated by bellicose Arabs. For minths now they had been under constant attack bu Arab bands.

On January 18, a group of thirty-five volunteers ... [account of ambush]

page 118 - In fact, they [Arab Legion] took an active part in the fighting against the Jews before the British left, in the Etzion settlements, where their intervention was decisive, and in sporadic incidents elsewhere.

pages 125,126 - By May 4 and 5 the Arab Legion was mounting a sustained drive on the Jewish villages on the mountains known as the Etzion bloc, which had been besieged for months. The settlers there were ill-provided with weapons but held out until May 13, when they succumbed to a combined attack by local Arab irregulars and the Arab Legion. Those who survives a general massacre by the irregulars surrendered to the Legion forces.

The brave resistance of the Etzion bloc delayed the arrival of part of the Arab Legion in Jerusalem and gave the capital more time to consolidate its position. But seen in retrospect the view that by their stand they saved Jerusalem does not appear to be justified. The plain truth of the matter is that Jerusalem was saved by its own defenders and residents. The hordes of Arabs who had been attacking the Etzion settlements for so long did not even join the later assault on Jerusalem. Most of them were villagers of that area who resented the existence of Jewish villages on their mountain. They wanted to wipe them out, and they wanted loot. Having gained both objectives, most of them went home to their villages.

As for the Arab Legion, after Etzion fell they did not constitute the main force in attacking the south of Jerusalem. This task was entrusted to Egyptian troops, which did not take part in the Etzion fighting. Indeed from the military point of view, had they wished to join in the attack on Jerusalem before Etzion fell, the Legion could have done so and ignored the existence of the Etzion bloc, since the Etzion settlements could not prevent the Legion from reaching Jerusalem by other roads entirely open to them. The settlers would have had all they could do to hold out against the attacks of the Arab irregular forces alone. They were certainly in no position to have come to the help of Jerusalem.

page 131 - It was feared that having helped subdue the Etzion block (sic), the Arab Legion might approach Jerusalem from the south.

page 145 - By May 27 th Housing Committee of the Jerusalem Emergency Commmittee had accomidated 784 families in temporary homes. [From Old City, Ramat Rachel] and from the Etzion bloc and other nearby agricultural settlements.

page 163 - Before noon [18 May] came a message that the Arabs had presented an ultimatum: they would repeat the Kfar Etzion massacre if the Jews [in the Old City] did not surrender.

page 194 - ...Abdel Kader el Hussein, led the attacks on Kfar Etzion, Yemin Moshe and Kastel,...

page 217 - ... the annihilation of the thirty-five young men who had gone to the relief of the Etzion bloc and perished,...

1970
Cohen, Aharon (1970) Israel and the Arab World.

page 406 - On January 15-16, 1948, an entire company of thirty-five, most of them Hebrew University students who had rushed to defend the Etzion bloc, was wiped out in a fight to the finish.

page 411 - On May 4 and 5, the Etzion bloc was attacked by the Arab Legion, ...

page 424 - and the slaughter of Jews by Arabs in the Etzion bloc. [footnote:] The Etzion bloc (Kfar Etzion, Masuot Yitzak. Ein Tsurim, and Revadim) was for months cut off from the rest of the Jewish community. Only a few convoys were able to break their way through to them. The only contact with them was through airplanes, for which runways were prepared within the bloc. At the beginning of May, the Arabs began to storm the bloc with the help of Arab Legion armored cars. On May 12, the Legion attack on the bloc began. The reply of British headquarters to the Jewish Agency protest was that the Legion as no longer under British orders. The bloc surrendered after a fierce two-day battle with tanks and armored cars, in which many of the defenders were killed. Surviving defenders were taken prisoner by the Legion, while the badly wounded were brought to Jerusalem by the Red Cross.

Kurzman, Don (1970) ''Genesis 1948. The First Arab-Israeli War.''

pages 48,49 - The Arabs launched their first big operation against the Jews on January 14, when about 1,000 Arab villagers shouting "Jihad! Jihad!" ("Holy War! Holy War!") stormed the Etzion Bloc of settlements perched atop the rolling Hebron hills. ... [Yaacov Edelstein, watching from a dugout with his machine-gun team, thought] ... Soon the surrounding valleys were silent as a cemetery - speckled only by lifeless Arabs, more than 150.

... The defenders - less than 30 after light casualties - were almost out of ammunition.

pages 49 to 53 - [account of January 15 platoon. Including Arab reports that there was a woman amongst the dead. Explicit description of mutialted bodies.]