Egyptian policeman Mohamed Salah, who was killed last Saturday after killing 3 Israeli soldiers at a guard post on the Egyptian-Palestinian border, has brought back to the minds of many stories of Egyptian soldiers, officers and volunteers in defending Palestine, and fighting several battles in Jerusalem and its surroundings during the 1948 war (the Nakba).

In his book "100 Years of My Life", the Jerusalemite Muammar Muhammad Jadallah documented many of these stories, which began with the "mettle" of the Egyptians in smuggling weapons through the Western Desert from the Marsa Matrouh area, where the remnants of the armies' weapons were brought from the remnants of World War II, and the weapons were rusty and full of sand and their ammunition was scarce.

At the same time, units of the Muslim Brotherhood came from Egypt led by Yuzbashi Mahmoud Abdo, Lieutenant Awad Zazaa, Khattab and other Egyptian soldiers and officers, and coordination began between the people of the town of Sur Baher in Jerusalem, specifically with the "Fourth Company, the third regiment of the Holy Jihad Army led by the Palestinian leader Abdul Qadir al-Husseini."

Jadallah documented the conduct of the battles of Sur Baher south of Jerusalem and the involvement of Egyptian officers and volunteers in defending them (Al Jazeera Net)

Fusion with the Holy Land

The Egyptians cooperated and participated in training, guarding, digging trenches, and establishing military "dashm" (sand or concrete mounds), and their leadership had 3 headquarters in Beit Jala, Bethlehem and Sur Baher, and they barricaded themselves side by side with the townspeople along the front lines of the Jewish settlements opposite Sur Baher, um Tuba, and Jabal Mukaber in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

Muammar Gadallah states that the volunteers of the Muslim Brotherhood led by Youzbashi Mahmoud Abdo numbered 60 members and were linked to the Egyptian army, which was responsible for it nicknamed the "Black Hyena" and was at an advanced military level.

Many nights passed without the Egyptians leaving the guard posts, returning fire from the front lines whenever fire broke out from nearby settlements.

One of the scenes of steadfastness documented by Jadallah is the capture of an Egyptian officer in one of the battles that took place with the Zionist gangs, and when it was decided to release him under an agreement between the two parties, an Israeli officer summoned him and asked him, "Were you with the Muslim Brotherhood of the Egyptian army in Sur Baher? The Egyptian officer replied: "Why are you asking?" He replied: I want to know why we failed to break through the front lines to enter Sur Baher."


Certificate. Collective Security

The Egyptian officer's answer was shocking when he said, "The wish of every member of the militants and the Brotherhood on the front lines of Sur Baher is martyrdom, and the reason for your failure is also our blind obedience to the Egyptian officers and leadership."

In another incident, Sheikh Makkawi, an Egyptian lieutenant, was slightly injured in one of the battles, so he turned to the Jerusalemite Muhammad Jadallah, and told him, "I wish she was the judge and won the martyrdom for the sake of God."

On the evening of the same day, Makkawi participated in one of the battles in the village of Sharafat adjacent to Sur Baher and was martyred with 3 of his comrades after being hit by a mortar shell, and they were buried in the Islamic cemetery in Bethlehem.

Egyptian soldiers and volunteers clung to the town of Sur Baher, chanting with the struggling townspeople, "O Palestine, remember our record in the book. Record those who were martyred and wounded in the mountains and valleys."

The Egyptian army remained in place and held out on the front lines, fighting several battles with Zionist gangs in Sur Bahir, Jabal Mukaber and the settlements of Talbot, Arnona and Ramat Rachel.

According to al-Maqdisi, the Egyptian leadership disbursed food to the Holy Jihad forces (Palestinian and Arab resistance) as well as to Egyptian soldiers.

A paper kept by Jadallah and details of the military units in Sur Baher during the 1948 war and the Egyptians were part of it (Al Jazeera Net)

Battles and captures of Zionists

Mohamed Gadallah's biography was full of many stories of desperation in which the commander of the Egyptian forces refused to be a participant and not just a commander.

One of the battles in which Yuzbashi Mahmoud Abdo participated was the battle that took place at the headquarters of the Arab College in Jerusalem, which was surrounded by Zionist gangs from the western side and machine gun bullets rained down towards the Arab forces coming to confront them, including the forces of Mahmoud Abdo, who was wounded in this battle.

Soon after, the Egyptian heavy artillery became involved in the battle and inflicted heavy losses on the ranks of the Zionist gangs, who withdrew completely from the area, and 10 of their members were captured after trying to escape and transported by Egyptian military vehicle to the official headquarters in Bethlehem.

"In this battle, I saw dozens of dead Jews on the ground, and under the pressure of Egyptian artillery, those who escaped escaped and those who died died, and in front of the headquarters of the British High Commissioner, a number of them surrendered and were captured and transferred to the Egyptian headquarters," Jadallah said.

Another large operation that was not erased from the memory of Muhammad Jadallah, which is the one in which he attended a large mine prepared from "TNT" in the seventh month of 1948, and this operation was coordinated between the Egyptian forces and the Holy Jihad and led by the Egyptian Lieutenant Dhaifallah Murad, who was martyred in this battle after blowing up a two-story building seized by Zionist gangs, and set up a fortified military zone around it and surrounded it with heavy machine guns that targeted both Sur Baher and Jabal Mukaber and Ghazil area.

After the war ended and Jordan took power in East Jerusalem, the Egyptians who were stationed in Jerusalem withdrew and continued to defend it and mixed their blood with its soil.

On the pain of their farewell and departure, Jadallah wrote, "After our long record of struggle in front of the colonies, providing martyrs and wounded, and steadfastness on this land, our Egyptian and Arab brothers withdrew and we found ourselves alone without the Arab forces, facing a darker fate."