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The telegram added that the Holy War Army fighters now controlled the Ramat Rahel settlement, and that one thousand Jews had gathered the previous night in Hulda and walked with their equipment to Artuf. The Palestinian fighters, cooperating with the Arab Army, ambushed them, killed three hundred, and captured nine.

During the same period, the battle of the Kfar Etzion settlement took place. It stood on the heights along the Jerusalem-Hebron road and was one of the strongest fortified Jewish settlements, made up of several neighboring settlements. Haganah forces and the two gangs Stern and Irgun Zvai Leumi protected it. They confronted Arab convoys and cut the road against them. This major obstacle had to be removed from the path of the Arab convoys. On 12 May 1948, the Arab forces confronted the settlement and shelled it with artillery, then surrounded it after fierce resistance. The battle continued for two days, after which they stormed the settlement. Most of the Jewish fighters inside fell dead or wounded, and the rest were taken prisoner.

On 15 May 1948, I received a telegram from the command center in Jerusalem. It read:

“The battle of Kfar Etzion ended with the killing of 220 Jews and the surrender of 370 from the neighboring settlements, who were taken prisoner. The fighters seized six armored vehicles, three hundred rifles, a number of machine guns, and quantities of ammunition. The women, children, and elderly will be handed over to the Red Cross. Two enemy aircraft were burned. Thirty men from the Arab forces were martyred, and most of the settlement’s houses were blown up.”

Some Arab sources raise the number of Jews killed in the Kfar Etzion battle to more than five hundred soldiers.

The command of the Holy War Army adopted a plan to attack Jewish transportation routes and destroy the enemy’s armed convoys by placing mines in their path and then attacking them. The Jews therefore armored their vehicles with plating so that bullets would not penetrate them. This did not deter the fighters from attacking and destroying them. On 27 March 1948, the battle of al-Duhaysha took place at a point on the Jerusalem-Hebron road near Bethlehem. A large, armed Jewish convoy guarded by eight armored vehicles was traveling from the Jewish settlements toward Jerusalem. The fighters lay in wait until it returned, then confronted it and blew up the first armored vehicle at the front of the convoy and the last car, thereby disabling the entire convoy’s movement.