Great heroics staged by the Iraqi volunteers in the battles of 1948 in Palestine, where they contributed, along with their Arab brothers, to preventing the displacement of large sectors of the Palestinian people as a result of the aggression against them by the Zionist gangs.

On March 8, 1948, the Iraqi volunteers led by Lieutenant Colonel Ali Ghaleb Aziz fought a fierce battle during which they wrested the El-Ayoun area (north of Jerusalem) from the British police, and prevented it from being handed over to the Haganah gangs, the first nucleus that later formed the Israeli occupation army.

Hundreds of Iraqi volunteers participated in the defense of Palestine in 1948 (communication sites)

Iraqi volunteers

Since Palestine came under the British Mandate and the subsequent partition decisions in 1936 and 1947 and the increase in Jewish immigration rates, Iraq has been keen to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, stressing its Arab identity and has not hesitated to provide all kinds of military, material and moral support to the Palestinians, according to a professor of history. Arab world Assistant Dr. Saad Mohsen Al-Obaidi

Al-Obaidi added to Al-Jazeera Net that the first batch of Iraqi volunteers went to Palestine in 1936, and they numbered a hundred people. They arrived in Jordan openly, but then they entered Palestine with the help of the Bedouins in a clandestine manner.

He continues to say that when the decision to partition Palestine was issued by the United Nations in 1947, that unjust decision against the Palestinian Arab people awakened patriotic and national feelings, and demonstrations took place in most Iraqi cities denouncing the UN General Assembly resolution, and Baghdad witnessed demonstrations that lasted for 7 days.

The Iraqi movement resulted in the establishment of the "Palestine Salvation Association" and the "United Front for the Salvation of Palestine", which contributed to mobilizing volunteers, collecting funds, purchasing weapons and sending them to Palestine.

Al-Obeidi talks about the participation of 3 Iraqi regiments of volunteers, and he supervised the arming, recruitment and training of 3 Iraqi generals: Taha Al-Hashemi, Ismail Safwa, and Nur al-Din Mahmoud, and among the most prominent of their leaders was Lieutenant Colonel Mahdi Saleh Al-Ani, who was stationed in the village of Jaba, and Lieutenant-Colonel Adel Najm al-Din, who was stationed in Jaffa. And Major Abdel Hamid Al-Rawi, who was stationed in Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Regarding the numbers of volunteers, Al-Obaidi believes that they were more than 800 fighters because there are numbers that went without the government's knowledge and participated in the fighting, while the official military forces numbered 19 thousand Iraqi soldiers.

Shabib: The Iraqi volunteers made a military achievement in the battle of Ras al-Ain (Al-Jazeera Net)

Ras Al Ain

The volume of Iraqi military participation in Palestine was very large in 1948, from the beginning of the military clashes that were a result of the repercussions of the partition decision and until the end of the war with the armistice agreements, according to political science professor Dr. Asaad Kazem Shabib.

Concerning the first battle of Ras al-Ain, or what is known as the Battle of El-Ayoun, Shabib told Al-Jazeera Net that this battle was led by Lieutenant Colonel Ali Ghaleb Aziz, where the Iraqi volunteers were able to wrest the El-Ayoun area and the water facility from the hands of the British forces with their military arsenal.

The Iraqi volunteers were also able to perform a heroic military achievement, as they prevented the British from handing them over to the Haganah gangs, as happened in many other cases, as the British handed over many vital installations to the Zionists at the time.

Shabib explains that the battle resulted in the death of one Iraqi volunteer and the injury of another, who was moderately wounded, and was subsequently transferred to receive treatment in a Palestinian hospital. This is a prominent battle alongside honorable battles in which the Iraqis participated.

Shabib stresses the importance of this battle despite its limitations, as it was influential and the Iraqi volunteers were able to defeat the British forces, and they had an honorable role and an essential contribution to victory in those battles.

Abdul Sattar: The Iraqis fought violent battles to preserve the Palestinian areas and prevent displacement (Al-Jazeera Net)

Prevent displacement

Shabib believes that the participation of Iraqi volunteers in these battles contributed to maintaining control over large Arab areas, and prevented the displacement of their inhabitants.

He indicates that the second phase of the war began with the entry of units of the regular Iraqi army into Palestine in May 1948 via the Majma 'Bridge, and they clashed directly with the British and Zionist forces there, and the Iraqi army had an active and influential role in this battle, and Iraq offered 40 martyrs during it.

For his part, academic and political researcher Saddam Abdul Sattar says that the Iraqi forces, whether volunteers or the regular army, had the great merit in preserving the areas in which they were linked, and preventing Jewish gangs from entering the Arab Triangle region (in the north), which was known in a certain period of the Triangle. Al-Iraqi, where the Iraqis fought violent battles to preserve this area, despite the harsh conditions, as dozens of Iraqi martyrs were killed, and the graves that are still standing there testify to them.

Al-Jamali believes that if the matter were left to the armies of Iraq and Jordan, great success would be achieved in Palestine (Iraqi Press)

Withdrawal of volunteers

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Abdul Sattar points out that the morale of the Iraqi army was very high, but with the passage of time it decreased due to its failure to participate in the fighting as it should.

"This army did not go beyond the borders of the division and was not allowed to engage in effective clashes, except for the counterattack carried out by an Iraqi regiment led by Lieutenant Colonel Omar Ali, in which it recaptured the city of Jenin in the West Bank in June 1948," he explains.

Abdul Sattar attributes the reason for the Iraqi army’s retreat to two main problems, the first is the Iraqi government's failure to provide it with all the weapons and equipment it needs, and the second is that it is under the command of Abd al-Ilah (the regent of the throne in Iraq) and the English Globe Pasha (who was leading the Jordanian army) and a story. It was not the well-known "orders. These two problems had dangerous repercussions on the Iraqi and Palestinian volunteers."

Former Iraqi Army Staff Colonel Salim Shaker Al-Anami says that the term "no orders" spread quickly in Iraq at the time.

Al-Front, who was one of the Iraqi leaders in the war with Israel, explains that this term was an indication that the Iraqi army was forced to withdraw after the first truce because it had placed the Arab Legion under the leadership of the King of Jordan, Prince Abdullah the First.

He adds to Al-Jazeera Net that all of Europe stood with the Jews, at a time when the Arab armies received corrupt weapons and it was a scandal for years, and if the matter was left to the armies of Iraq and Jordan, a lot would be achieved.