Six Days by Jeremy Bowen

Author:Jeremy Bowen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

DAY THREE

7 June 1967

Jerusalem, 0030

The terrifying sound and light of battle was close enough to be seen and heard clearly in Jerusalem. Israeli artillery, tanks and air strikes were destroying a Jordanian column that was making a late and desperate attempt to climb the steep road from Jericho to Jerusalem. Jordanian soldiers and armed Palestinian civilian volunteers took it all in from their posts on the walls of the Old City. For two hours, confronted with Israel’s power, they chanted ‘Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar’, God alone is great. On the Mount of Olives more than 100 civilians, mostly Muslims, crowded into the Apostolic Delegation, the official residence of the Pope’s representative in Jerusalem. But the soldiers on the city walls were abandoned by most of their officers, who slipped away during the night. At half past midnight Brigadier Atta Ali, the Jordanian commander, went to the offices of the Waqf, the Islamic religious authority, where the Governor of Jerusalem Anwar al Khatib had set up his headquarters. The brigadier told him that nothing more could be done. The men on the walls were demoralised, hungry and exhausted. The army had given them no food since the battle for Jerusalem started. There was only ammunition in the Old City but it was not reaching their positions. There was no resupply. On the first day of the war, Jordanian soldiers had knocked on the front door of the house of Anwar Nusseibeh, a leading Palestinian, to tell him that they had run out of ammunition. By the third day the situation was critical. Communications had broken down throughout the Jordanian army. After the first day the batteries on their radios had gone flat and were not recharged or replaced. Around Jerusalem they used ordinary telephones, which the Israelis easily intercepted, until they stopped working. In Jordanian Jerusalem there was no electricity and very little water. Most of the army had pulled back across the river Jordan to the East Bank. The governor refused to believe it was over. Surely, he asked, the people of Jerusalem could take up arms to continue the fight. If they needed officers the sons of the notable Palestinian families were available.

The brigadier was against it. ‘All you’ll be doing is destroying Jerusalem. Jerusalem will definitely be assaulted by dawn, and my troops are in no condition to resist.’ He was leaving too. He offered to escort the governor to safety. Khatib refused. ‘You are the military commander and you decide military behaviour, but Jerusalem is my adopted city and I’m not ready to leave it that way. If it is the will of God that I should die, I would not want to die anywhere else.’

Jordan’s hold over Jerusalem, which had lasted nineteen years, was slipping away. At one in the morning Jordanian NCOs came into the room to report to Atta Ali that, with the officers gone, some of their men were deserting. The brigadier told them to come back with him to their positions. He

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.