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the weapons and ammunition it had purchased with popular funds collected from the cities and villages. Clashes began with the Acre-Haifa Bay settlements after Jewish gangs confronted the Arab convoy carrying weapons from Syria and Lebanon to Haifa and ambushed it at the Motzkin settlement, as we described earlier. The commander Muhammad al-Hunayti and several of the martyred fighters accompanying the convoy, Surur Barham, Fakhri al-Barda, Umar al-Khatib, and the rest of their companions, were victims of the incident. The Acre National Guard and a group of Haifa youths who had survived the convoy ambush then ambushed a group of Jewish workers accompanied by a British military detachment when they reached the Acre-Haifa-Safed road junction. They opened rifle fire, killing four Jews and five British soldiers, and captured an armored vehicle, which they later used in the battles. They lent it to the Syrian officer Khalil al-Kallas, one of the Salvation Army officers, on the assignment of Lieutenant Colonel Adib al-Shishakli, later president of Syria, who was responsible for operations in the western Galilee area, including Acre, Safed, and their surroundings.

The Arab states’ Military Committee, headed by Major General Ismail Safwat, had assigned defense of this area to the Salvation Army. The late Adib al-Shishakli therefore came to the area with several officers, including Lieutenant Adnan Murad and Lieutenant Khalil al-Kallas, at the head of a detachment of 15 to 20 volunteers from Hama.

Among the volunteers who came with al-Shishakli, driven by patriotism and zeal to defend Palestine, were Dr. Abd al-Salam al-Ujayli, Mr. Abd al-Karim Zuhur, Dr. Faysal al-Rukbi, Mr. Akram al-Hawrani, all from Hama, and Mr. Ahmad Husayn, head of the Young Egypt Association. Shishakli placed the officer Fuad Jadid in the area between Tarshiha and Acre, assigned the Shafa Amr area to its first president, Shakib Wahhab, and moved between Acre and Safed.

The Acre National Guard and the young men of the clubs did not limit their work to the Acre area. They came to the aid of every battle between Arabs and Jews in the surrounding areas. They took part in the battle of al-Kasayir near Shafa Amr, in which several Arabs were martyred and many Jewish Haganah men were killed, and they helped Arab villages attacked by the Jews, including al-Sumayriyya, al-Mazra‘a, al-Hamima, Umm al-Faraj, al-Nahr, and al-Kabri.