Battles of the Kinarot Valley

The first stage of the 1948 War started following the ratification of UN Resolution 181 on 29 November 1947, which granted Israel the mandate to declare independence. This was declared on 14 May 1948 and the next night, the armies of a number of Arab states invaded Israel and attacked Israeli positions. The Arab states surrounding the Mandate of Palestine started to prepare themselves a few weeks before 15 May. According to the Arab plan, the Syrian army was to attack the new state from southern Lebanon and capture Safed. As such, the Syrians massed their forces in that area; however, after they found out that Lebanon did not wish to actively participate in combat, their plans changed to an attack from the southern Golan Heights on Samakh (Tzemah) and later Tiberias. The Syrian force assembled in Qatana on 1 May. It moved on 12 May to Beirut and to Sidon on 13 May, after which it headed to Bint Jbeil. After the sudden plan change, the force moved to Nabatieh, and proceeded around the Finger of the Galilee to Banias and Quneitra, from which the eventual attack was staged. The Syrian Army was meant to consist of two brigade-sized units, but there was no time to prepare them, thus only the 1st Brigade was in a state of readiness by 15 May. It had about 2,000 soldiers in two infantry battalions, one armored battalion, and 4–6 artillery batteries. ==Prelude==

According to plan, the Syrians attacked from the southern Golan Heights, just south of the Sea of Galilee through al-Hama and the Yarmouk River, hitting a densely populated Jewish area of settlement. This came as a surprise to the Haganah, which expected an attack from south Lebanon and Mishmar HaYarden. The Jewish villages on the original confrontation line were Ein Gev, Masada, Sha'ar HaGolan and Degania Alef and Beit. On Friday, 14 May, the Syrian 1st Infantry Brigade, commanded by Colonel Abdullah Wahab el-Hakim, was in Southern Lebanon, positioned to attack Malkia. That day Hakim was ordered to return to Syria, move south across the Golan and enter Palestine south of the Sea of Galilee through Samakh (Tzemah). He began to advance at 9:00 AM on Saturday and had only two of his battalions, where the soldiers were already exhausted. At the onset of the invasion, the Syrian force consisted of a reinforced infantry brigade, supplemented by at least one armored battalion (including Renault R35 tanks) and a field artillery battalion. The troops moved to Kafr Harib and were spotted by Haganah reconnaissance, but because the attack was not expected, the Israeli troops did not attack the invaders. At night between 15 and 16 May, the bulk of the Syrian forces set up camp in Tel al-Qasr in the southwestern Golan. One company with armored reinforcements split up to the south to proceed to the Jewish water station on the Yarmouk riverbank. The Haganah forces in the area consisted of several units from the Barak (2nd) Battalion of the Golani Brigade, as well as the indigenous villagers, including a reduced Guard Corps (HIM) company at the Samakh (Tzemah) police station. This force was headed by the battalion commander's deputy, who was killed in action in the battle. On 13 May, the battalion commander declared a state of emergency in the area from 15 May until further notice. He authorized his men to seize all necessary arms from the settlements and urged them to dig in and build fortifications as fast as possible, and to mobilize all the necessary work force to do so. ==Battles==

On Saturday night, 15 May, the observation posts reported many vehicles with full lights moving along the Golan ridge east of the Sea of Galilee. Degania Alef After the fall of Tzemah, the Haganah command realized the importance of the campaign in the region, and made a clear separation between the Kinarot Valley, and the Battle of Gesher fought against Transjordan and Iraq to the south. On 18 May, Moshe Dayan, who had been born in Degania, was given command of all forces in the area, after having been charged with creating a commando battalion in the 8th Brigade just a day before. A company of reinforcements from the Gadna program was allocated, along with 3 PIATs. Other reinforcements came in the form of a company from the Yiftach Brigade and another company of paramilitaries from villages in the Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley. The Israeli defenders called the reinforcements assuming they were facing the main Syrian thrust. The Syrians were not intending to carry out any further operation south of the Sea of Galilee and planned to make their main effort further north, near the Bnot Ya'akov bridge. On 19 May, the Iraqis were about to drive west through Nablus toward Tulkarm, and asked the Syrians to make a diversion in the Degania area to protect their right flank. The Syrians complied, their main objective being to seize the bridge across the river north of Degania Alef, thus blocking any Israeli attack from Tiberias against the Iraqi line of communications. Heavy Syrian shelling of Degania Alef started at about 04:00 on 20 May from the Samakh police station, by means of 75 mm cannons, and 60 and 81 mm mortars. The barrage lasted about half an hour. At 04:30 on 20 May, the Syrian army began its advance on the Deganias and the bridge over the Jordan River north of Degania Alef. Unlike the attack on Samakh (Tzemah), this action saw the participation of nearly all of the Syrian forces stationed at Tel al-Qasr, including infantry, armor and artillery. The Israeli defenders numbered about 70 persons (67 according to Aharon Israeli's head count), most of them not regular fighters, with some Haganah and Palmach members. Their orders were to fight to the death. They had support from three 20 mm guns at Beit Yerah, deployed along the road from Samakh to Degania Alef. They also had a Davidka mortar, which exploded during the battle, and a PIAT with fifteen projectiles. At night, a Syrian expeditionary force had attempted to infiltrate Degania Bet, but was caught and warded off, which caused the main Syrian force to attack Degania Alef first. At 06:00, the Syrians started a frontal armored attack, consisting of 5 tanks, a number of armored vehicles and an infantry company. The Syrians pierced the Israeli defense, but their infantry was at some distance behind the tanks. The Israelis knocked out four Syrian tanks and four armored cars with 20 mm cannons, PIATs and Molotov cocktails. Meanwhile, other defenders kept small arms fire on the Syrian infantry, who stopped in citrus groves a few hundred meters from the settlements. The surviving Syrian tanks withdrew back to the Golan. At 07:45, the Syrians halted their assault and dug in, still holding most of the territory between Degania Alef's fence and Samakh's police fort. They left behind a number of lightly damaged or otherwise inoperable tanks that the Israelis later managed to repair. Degania Bet Despite the Syrian superiority in numbers and equipment, the destruction of a multitude of armored vehicles and the infantry's failure to infiltrate Degania Alef was the likely cause for the retreat of the main Syrian force to Samakh (Tzemah). A less-organized and sparsely numbered armored and infantry force forked off to attack Degania Bet. Eight tanks, supported by mortar fire, moved within 400 yards of the settlement defense, where they stopped to provide fire support for an infantry attack. The Syrians made two failed attempts to breach the Israeli small arms fire defense and gave up the attempt. Against this force, the Israelis had about 80 people and one PIAT. The defenses in Degania Bet were disorganized and there were not enough trenches. They also had no communication link to the command, so Moshe Dayan sent one of his company commanders to assess the situation. While the battle was taking place, the 65 mm artillery, four Napoleonchik canons, reached the front in the middle of the day and were placed on the Poria–Alumot ridge. It was the first Israeli artillery to be used in the war. At 13:20, they began to fire at the Syrians, and after about 40 rounds the latter began to retreat. The Israelis also fired into Samakh, where the Syrian officers, who had until then believed that the Israelis had nothing that could hit their headquarters, took shelter. One projectile hit the Syrian ammunition depot in the village, and others ignited fires in the dry fields. While the soldiers who operated the cannons (still lacking sights) were not proficient in handling them, an acceptable level of accuracy was achieved after practice shots into the Sea of Galilee. In all, the artillery fire took the Syrian army by complete surprise, and the latter decided to regroup and retreat to Tel al-Qasr, also recalling the company at Sha'ar HaGolan and Masada. A total of 500 shells were fired by the Israeli artillery. Syrian officers may have shot some of their fleeing soldiers. There were two other reasons for the Syrian withdrawal. The 3rd Battalion from the Palmach's Yiftach Brigade had been sent by boat during the previous night across the sea to Ein Gev, planning to assault and capture Kafr Harib. It was noticed and shelled by the Syrians, but one of the companies managed to climb up the Golan. It carried out a smaller raid at dawn, bombing water carriers and threatening the Syrian 1st Brigade's line of communications. The second reason was that they were running out of ammunition: Husni al-Za'im had been promised replenishment, and attacked Degania short of ammunition. Za'im ordered a withdrawal when his troops ran out of ammunition. The replenishment was instead sent to the 2nd Brigade further north. The Israelis were not aware of this, and attributed the Syrian withdrawal to surprise at the Israeli artillery fire. ==Aftermath and effects==

On 21 May, Haganah troops returned to Samakh (Tzemah) and set up fortifications, The damaged tanks and armored cars were gathered and taken to the rear. The settlers returned that night to identify the bodies of their comrades in the fields and buried them in a common grave in Degania. At dawn on 21 May, the Golani staff reported that the enemy was repelled but that they were expecting another attack. The full report read: On 22 May, villagers returned to Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan, which had been largely destroyed. Expecting another attack, reinforcements from the Carmeli Brigade took up positions in the two villages. Many of the participants of the battles were sent to Tiberias to rest and recuperate, and the units that lost soldiers were reorganized. In the wake of the fall of Gush Etzion, news of Degania's successful stand (as well as that of Kfar Darom) provided a morale boost for other Israeli villages. The battle also influenced British opinion on the balance of power in the war. The success of the Napoleonchik field cannons prompted the Israeli high command to re-use two of them in attempts to capture Latrun. The flight from Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan, on the other hand, stirred controversy in the young state, fueled by news of the Kfar Etzion massacre just days before, and the Palmach issued a newsletter accusing them of abandoning national assets, among other things. These accusations were subsequently repeated in media and in a play by Yigal Mossensohn, and a campaign was started by the villagers to clear their name. The battles of the Kinarot Valley were the first and last of the major ground engagements between Israel and Syria to the south of the Sea of Galilee, although minor patrol skirmishes continued until the first ceasefire. The campaign, combined with the Battle of Gesher, was possibly the only coordinated attack between two or more Arab countries in the northern front. At the end, the Syrians held Tel al-Qasr, which was part of the British Mandate of Palestine and the Jewish state according to the UN partition of 1947. Despite the above, the offensive was considered a decisive Syrian defeat by both sides. The Syrian defense minister Ahmad al-Sharabati and Chief of Staff Abdullah Atfeh blamed each other, the latter resigning and the former being dismissed by the prime minister as a result of the battle. As reasons for their defeat, they gave their low level of preparedness and the strength of the Israeli defenses, as well as their lack of coordination with the Iraqis (according to one Syrian historian, the Iraqis were supposed to assist them in the Deganias). After the battle, British observers became convinced that the Arabs were not going to win the war, and compared the battle to the Luftwaffe's failure in the Battle of Britain in 1940, which showed that Germany was not going to win the air war. The observers said that "A greater edge than the [Syrians] enjoyed at Degania they won't have again". First tank kill controversy The first Syrian tank damaged near Degania Alef's gates, which has been preserved on the location, was the subject of a historiographic dispute when Baruch "Burke" Bar-Lev, a retired IDF colonel and one of Degania's native defenders at the time, claimed that he was the one who stopped the tank with a Molotov cocktail. However, his account was rebutted by an IDF Ordnance Corps probe, which in 1991 determined that a PIAT shot had killed the tank's crew. Shlomo Anschel, a Haifa resident who also participated in the battle, told Haaretz in 2007 that the tank was hit by PIAT fire from a Golani soldier, and that the Molotov cocktail could not possibly have hit the crew. ==References==