Liberation of Jerusalem

On November 29, 1947, it was decided in the UN Partition Plan that Jerusalem would be under international control. However, when the War of Independence broke out, both sides – the Jews and the Arabs – tried to take control of the city. The Arab forces blocked the passage to Jerusalem to Jews, and cut off the water supply to the city. Only convoys of armored vehicles succeeded, at a heavy cost in human lives, in breaking through to the city and bringing supplies to its residents.

On May 14, 1948, upon the departure of the British from the country, the Israeli forces began to take over compounds held by the Mandatory government. On May 18, the Arab Legion reached Jerusalem and entered the Old City. On May 19, a Palmach force managed to enter the Jewish Quarter through Zion Gate and bring supplies and reinforcements, but on the next day the Arab troops took control of the Zion Gate area again, and the siege on the Jewish Quarter resumed. On May 28, the Jewish Quarter fell into the hands of the Jordanians, its defenders were taken prisoner and its synagogues were demolished. On June 1, 1948, Burma Road was opened, and the siege on Jerusalem began to weaken. Jerusalem was divided for 19 years; Israel held the western part of the city, while Jordan held its eastern part, containing the Old City, including the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. Mount Scopus – the site of Hadassah Hospital, the Hebrew University and the British military cemetery – remained an enclave under Israeli control in the eastern part of the city. Israel declared Jerusalem as its capital and transferred the government institutions to west Jerusalem.

On June 5, 1967, the Six-Day War broke out. The campaign in Jerusalem began when the Jordanians opened fire in an attempt to penetrate into southern Jerusalem through the area of the UN headquarters (the former seat of the British High Commissioner); this campaign lasted for just three days. The Jordanian offensive was repelled, and in a counter-attack the fighters of the IDF’s Jerusalem Brigade took control of the UN headquarters building and the nearby “Naknik” military post, and blocked the Jordanian road to Bethlehem by capturing the village Sur Baher and the “Paamon” post. This cut off access to east Jerusalem from the south. At a later stage, fierce battles were waged, which ended in the takeover of the Arab neighborhood Abu Tor.

The Central Command, headed at the time by Maj.-Gen. Uzi Narkiss, sent the Harel armored brigade to the Jerusalem area. The brigade’s troops cut through the Radar Hill and Sheikh Abdul Aziz military posts, and captured Nabi Samuel and the village of Bidu. On June 6, the Harel forces reached the Jerusalem- Ramallah road, and stormed Tel al-Ful and Givat Hamivtar.

The Paratroopers Brigade, under the command of Mordechai “Motta” Gur, advanced to Jerusalem in order to open the road to Mount Scopus, and from there continued to the Rockefeller Museum, to enable the troops to break through to the Old City on short notice. The brigade’s fighters breached the city line, captured the Police Academy and Ammunition Hill, Mandelbaum Gate, the American Colony and Wadi Joz. The road to Mount Scopus was opened, and the fighters established contact with the Israeli enclaves on it. On June 7 (the 28th of Iyar, 5727), the order to liberate the Old City was issued by the IDF General Staff. The Central Command dispatched the Paratroopers Brigade, and its soldiers captured the Mount Scopus ridge and the Mount of Olives. A force from the Paratroopers Brigade entered the Old City from the east, through the Lions’ Gate, took the Old City without encountering further resistance and raised the Israeli flag over the Western Wall.

Here is how those moments were documented in Moshe Nathan’s book, The War for Jerusalem (Tel Aviv, 1968): “[…] Zamush [the company commander] took out of his webbing the flag he had received from the Cohen family before going into battle (the same flag that the elderly Ms. Cohen had brought 19 years ago from the defeated Jewish Quarter). Less than three days had passed since he had folded the flag and packed it in his webbing, but it seemed to him as if it had been through three generations. He spread out the flag, his hands trembling with excitement, and moved forward on the roof until the point where it joined with the edge of the Western Wall. Next to him stood the deputy brigade commander, Moishe, and a few others from his company. When they reached the iron bar extending over the Western Wall, Zamush passed by them and tied the flag to two protruding iron spikes. A summer breeze that suddenly blew over the Wall spread out the flag and lifted it into the sky. The paratroopers gazed at the flag waving in the wind and their excitement was so great that they began to relieve it by roaring with joy and waving their hands. Afterwards they spontaneously formed a column and fired a volley of gunshots in honor of the flag being raised.”