Bar-Lev promptly contacted Narkiss: “There’s danger that the Security Council will decide on a cease-fire. You have to break into the Old City immediately. But proceed carefully—use your head.” Narkiss, in turn, radioed Gur at the Rockefeller Museum, and ordered him to take Augusta Victoria ridge at once and move his men from Herod’s Gate east to the Lions Gate (“Vietnam,” in IDF code), the closest to the Western Wall. The Central Command chief was anxious to get started. “My experience fighting in Jerusalem in 1948 had scarred me deeply,” he admitted to his staff after the war, “In Jerusalem, I knew, what you don’t finish today you may not be able to finish tomorrow.”
Narkiss’s fears were shared by Menachem Begin. Having heard of the impending cease-fire on the 4:00 A.M. BBC news, Begin phoned Dayan. “The Security Council’s decision changes the whole situation,” he stressed, “We must not wait a second more.” Dayan peevishly replied—“I don’t need any more advice…I’ve given the order to enter the city even if it’s not surrounded”— and advised Begin to consult with Eshkol. Begin proceeded to call the prime minister’s office and, after apologizing for disturbing him, to convince Eshkol to convene an emergency Cabinet meeting for no later than 7:00. Dayan, meanwhile, approved the limited use of tanks and planes to help facilitate the break-through. The order came with a strict caveat against hitting the Dome of the Rock, the al-Aqsa Mosque, or the Holy Sepulchre, damage to any of which could ignite yet another international crisis.
Israeli guns opened fire on the Muslim Quarter at 6:00 A.M. Two hours later, IDF artillery laid a heavy barrage on the area around Augusta Victoria, followed by jets dropping napalm. The trenches around the hospital, built by Kaiser Wilhelm in 1909 and named for his wife, became deathtraps. “I found one of my soldiers shriveled to the size of my hand,” claimed company commander Mahmud Abu Faris. The few surviving Jordanians fled, and the paratroopers who soon arrived—the 71st Battalion from Mount Scopus and the 66th from Wadi Joz—found the once-contested ridge deserted. Most of the Israeli casualties were in fact self-inflicted: nine dead and eleven wounded by errant artillery rounds.
The paratroopers proceeded southward, seizing the Intercontinental Hotel, built atop the Mount of Olives and the world’s oldest Jewish cemetery, and then Abu Dis, completing the encirclement of the city. From there, they descended to the Garden of Gethsemane, scene of Jesus’ arrest and of the previous night’s disastrous battle with the Jordanians. Before them stood the Old City and the gate erected by the Mamluk Sultan Baybars in 1320 and still decorated with his leonine coat of arms. Gripped with anticipation, Gur sent a message to his battalion commanders (see book jacket photo): “We occupy the heights overlooking the Old City. In a little while we will enter it. The ancient city of Jerusalem which for generations we have dreamt of and striven for—we will be the first to enter it. The Jewish nation is awaiting our victory. Israel awaits this historic hour. Be proud. Good luck.”4
The anticipation was not the army’s alone, however. The civilian population was also hanging on edge. The song “Jerusalem of Gold,” first sung on Independence Day, blared from every transistor. Teddy Kollek had not slept for sixty hours, but it did not hinder him from rushing to the formerly Jordanian Ambassador Hotel and setting up a provisional municipality for the soon-to-be-reunited city. There, the Vienna-born Kollek, a close protégé of Ben-Gurion, ran into Chaim Herzog, brother of Ya‘akov, a Cambridge-educated lawyer who had twice headed IDF intelligence. Since the start of the crisis, Herzog had been broadcasting regularly on the radio, calming his listeners with his sober analyses of the situation. Now, too excited to sit in his studio, he also hurried toward the Old City.
En route, Herzog encountered Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the IDF’s chief chaplain. Scholar and paratrooper, the bearded firebrand had just arrived from Sinai, where the half-track he was riding in received a direct hit and its driver killed. Armed with a Torah scroll and a ram’s horn—shofar—Goren had found Gur at the Rockefeller Museum and warned him, “history will never forgive you if you sit here and fail to enter [the Old City].” With Herzog, however, he was more magnanimous, promising him a place in the hereafter if he convinced the government to liberate Jerusalem.5
But the government had yet to be convinced, having just received Rusk’s telegram recommending that Israel accept the cease-fire.
“Nu? So what do we say to Hussein?” Eshkol asked an impromptu meeting of leading ministers and advisers. Before him now was not only Rusk’s cable but a similar message from Harold Wilson asking that Israel observe the cease-fire with Jordan. From New York, Eban reported an appeal from Goldberg saying, in the president’s name, that continuing the war with Jordan was liable to embroil Israel in “serious international complications.” There was little choice but to comply with the resolution, Eban added, and hope that somehow the Arabs would violate it.
“Every word we say is only liable to complicate matters,” Dayan counseled. “We have to be very careful.” He proposed inviting the king to a secret meeting, but beyond that making no promises. Ya’akov Herzog suggested that Israel complete its conquests on the eastern front and only then begin a dialogue with Hussein, while Arye Levavi insisted that Hussein first expel Riyad and other Egyptian officers as the precondition for any deal. “That’ll be the king’s death,” observed Yigal Allon. Eshkol wondered whether Israel’s agreement to the cease-fire might be linked to immediate peace talks with Hussein. “Maybe we’ll just ask him who’s the boss in Jordan?” he mused.
In the end, Eshkol’s question became Israel’s reply to Rusk: Was Hussein really in control of his troops and, if so, could he confirm that fact? Claiming that West Jerusalem was still being shelled, the Israelis insisted on knowing the precise moment when that bombardment would stop, and where Jordanian and Israeli representatives could meet to discuss the cease-fire and a “permanent peace.”
The chances that Hussein might respond favorably to these demands were minuscule, the Israelis knew. Still, with their troops literally only yards from entering the Old City, the ultimatum was a gamble. If the monarch accepted its terms, even theoretically, the opportunity to regain the Western Wall and other sacred sites—to realize a two-thousand-year-old Jewish aspiration—might be lost.
Jordan’s rejoinder was equivocal, though, evasive and indirect. Chief of staff Khammash told Burns that the army had no contact whatsoever with Jerusalem, and no way of knowing whether its cannons were still shelling enemy positions. Prime Minister Jum’a called in Western ambassadors and complained of repeated Israeli violations of the cease-fire. “Jordan has reached the limits of its patience!” he exclaimed, and warned of a massive counterattack.6 Other than that, silence. For the second time since the start of the war, Hussein had ignored a personal appeal from Eshkol. The ultimatum was effectively defied.
At 9:45 A.M., Sherman tanks fired point-blank at the twelve-meter-high Lions Gate, destroying a bus that had been positioned to block it, and blasted open the door. Then, led by a half-track commanded by Capt. Yoram Zammush, an observant Jew whom Gur had promised would be the first to reach the Western Wall, the Israelis charged. Jordanian gunners shot from the walls and from rooftops around the square inside the gate, but the assault was overwhelming. Tanks lumbered forward, only to get wedged in the narrow alleyways. Half-tracks, one of which bore Motta Gur and his staff, edged by Zammush’s vehicle and headed for the Via Dolorossa, with its Stations of the Cross sacred to Christians. Other units fanned out toward the Damascus and the Jaffa Gates, through the Muslim and Christian Quarters, respectively.
Simultaneously, a company of the Jerusalem Brigade under Captain Eli Kedar climbed Mount Zion on the Old City’s southeastern corner, heading for the Zion Gate, the scene of Israel’s abortive breakthrough attempts in 1948. Kedar had fallen prisoner in that battle at age fifteen, but now, returning, he crawled through a hatch in the gate’s door and emerged into the Armenian Quarter. Fifty men followed and marched downhill to the former Jewish Quarter, which had been sacked and resettled
by Muslims, and found its dwellings draped with surrender flags. Encountering only scattered small-arms fire, Kedar led his force toward the Dung Gate—in Herodian times, a conduit for garbage disposal—and a rendezvous with the 71st paratroopers, who had approached the city from the Kidron Valley in the east.
Gur and his men, meanwhile, stepped into the tranquil, tree-lined plaza known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary (al-Haram al-Sharif) and to Jews as the Temple Mount (Har ha-Bayit). The site of both the First and Second Temples, believed to be the scene of Isaac’s binding and of Muhammad’s ascent to heaven, it was a Holy Place par excellence, revered by millions. Arik Akhmon, the intelligence officer, described the moment: “There you are on a half-track after two days of fighting, with shots still filling the air, and suddenly you enter this wide open space that everyone has seen before in pictures, and though I’m not religious, I don’t think there was a man who wasn’t overwhelmed with emotion. Something special had happened.” After a brief skirmish with Jordanian riflemen, Gur radioed Narkiss the three words—seven in English—that would resonate for decades afterward. “Har ha-Bayit be-Yadenu”—“The Temple Mount is in our hands.”
Gur received a delegation of Arab notables who proffered him the city’s surrender, along with arms that had been stored in the mosques. To their surprise, the general released them and allowed them to return to their homes. But neither he nor any of his staff knew how to get to the Western Wall, and were forced to ask an old Arab man for directions. He guided Gur through the Mughrabi Gate, exiting just south of the Wall. A retaining structure of giant ashlars erected by King Herod, the wall was the only remnant of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. Jews had not had access to the shrine, their holiest, for nineteen years.
As Gur descended, men from both the Jerusalem Brigade and the 71st paratroopers converged on the wall, ecstatic and all but oblivious to the persistent sniper fire. Rabbi Goren broke free of the three soldiers Gur had designated to restrain him, and ran headlong to the wall. He said Kaddish—the mourner’s prayer—blew his shofar, and proclaimed, “I, General Shlomo Goren, chiefrabbi of the Israeli Defense Forces, have come to this place never to leave it again.” Crammed into the narrow space between the stones and the ramshackle dwellings of the Mughrabi Quarter, the soldiers broke into spontaneous songs and prayers. Above them, the Star of David was hoisted.7
Eshkol wasted no time in placing the Holy Places under the jurisdiction of their relevant clergy—rabbis, Muslim clerics, the Catholic Church. His intention was to visit the Old City himself, but in view of continuing sniper fire, he was advised against it by the army. To his chagrin, at 2:30 P.M., Eshkol learned that his defense minister had ignored his advice. Accompanied by Rabin and Narkiss, in a procession that he took pains to have photographed, Dayan marched triumphantly to the Temple Mount. There he suggested to Narkiss that part of the Old City walls be pulled down—an ancient practice symbolizing conquest. Rabbi Goren also had an idea: In preparation for the imminent Messianic era, the IDF should utilize the explosives it had on hand and demolish the Temple Mount’s mosques. Narkiss ignored both proposals. His concern was maintaining order and achieving the security needed to establish Israeli governance of the city. “The thought that it was my destiny to be the vehicle of that mission,” he wrote, “overwhelmed me.”
Arriving at the Western Wall, Dayan observed the tradition of writing a prayer on a note—rumor had it that he wished for peace—and inserting it between the stones. Then, with his usual ambiguity, at once militant and magnanimous, he declared: “We have reunited the city, the capital of Israel, never to part it again. To our Arab neighbors we offer even now…our hand in peace.”
Rabin listened to Dayan’s words and watched with awe the scene of hundreds of soldiers, joined by Ultra-Orthodox Jews, dancing. “This was the peak of my life,” he recalled. “For years I had secretly harbored the dream that I might play a role…in restoring the Western Wall to the Jewish people…Now that dream had come true, and suddenly I wondered why I, of all men, should be so privileged.” His words at the wall sounded less like a soldier’s than a prophet’s:
The sacrifices of our comrades have not been in vain…The countless generations of Jews murdered, martyred and massacred for the sake of Jerusalem say to you, ‘Comfort yet, our people; console the mothers and the fathers whose sacrifices have brought about redemption.’8
Jubilation had also gripped the government. Begin was demanding that the Jewish Quarter be reconstructed at once and resettled with several thousand Israelis. Eban, hearing about the victory in New York, wrote of “a flood of historic emotion [that] burst the dams of restraint and set minds and hearts in movement far beyond the limits of our land.” Among the most strenuous opponents of the war, Religious Affairs Minister Zorach Warhaftig recalled how “my heart was filled with gladness,” as he rushed to kiss the Western Wall and embrace both Dayan and Rabin. Yigal Yadin, the prime minister’s special military adviser, was already thinking of the next objective—Hebron. “We have a long history with Hebron, going back to Abraham,” he reminded Eshkol who, alone among the ministers, remained subdued. Dispirited by the deaths of 97 paratroopers in the battle, and the 430 wounded, he was also wary of occupying a large and hostile Palestinian population. “Have you already thought about how we can live with so many Arabs?” he asked. Yadin’s retort was brash: “Truth is, your honor, once our forces arrive they [the Palestinians] will flee to the desert.”9
The momentum of the Israeli advance indeed appeared unstoppable. At the same moment that Motta Gur’s paratroopers claimed the Western Wall, Ben-Ari’s tanks reached the outskirts of Jericho. The first of several heavy battles had broken out west of Nablus while, south of Jerusalem, Israeli infantry overran the defenses around the Mar Elias monastery. Beyond that lay Bethlehem and Hebron. Jordanian forces were in total disarray, abandoning vehicles in their rush to reach the East Bank and safety. Amid the ruins of the Etzion Bloc, a cluster of Israeli settlements outside Jerusalem destroyed in 1948, the attackers found twenty Patton tanks in pristine condition. A similar number was left stuck in the mud of Jericho. The strength of the Jordanian army had been reduced by 80 percent, Prime Minister Jum‘a complained to Burns, and claimed that the Israelis were determined to destroy the rest. The evacuation proceeded at an ever-diminishing pace, as the roads became clogged with refugees.
Early that afternoon, Hussein appeared before his general staff. He spoke of the need to rally the country’s remaining forces to defend the East Bank, and of his continuing hope for reinforcements. The only Arab ruler to have come anywhere near the actual fighting, having gone two and a half days without food or sleep, the king looked to one witness “stunned, depressed, and humiliated.” He had just lost one-half of his kingdom, along with its principal sources of revenue—tourism and agriculture. His army lay in ruins. Under such circumstances, Hussein could scarcely be consoled by the latest cable to arrive from Cairo. This revealed that Nasser had approved the king’s evacuation order and that, in view of the need for international pressure to save Jerusalem, had exempted Jordan from breaking relations with the West.10
“The Curtain” Falls
Hussein’s willingness to accept the cease-fire—if not yet to eject the Egyptians—alerted Israeli leaders to the fact that the war’s end was in sight. “The sand in the political hourglass was beginning to run out,” Rabin noted, and in view of that fact, he ordered the immediate launching of Operation Lights—the conquest of Sharm al-Sheikh—originally scheduled for that evening.
The operation began, as planned, with a naval probe of the Egyptian defenses. These were assumed to include two infantry battalions, artillery and anti-aircraft units, and, offshore, a large naval contingent—six torpedo boats, a destroyer, and a submarine. An aerial reconnaissance conducted at 4:00 A.M., however, showed that the area was practically deserted. Still, Rabin refused to be lulled, and half an hour later, a formation of three Israeli missile boats opened fire on the enemy’s
shore batteries. Paratroopers and commandos meanwhile prepared to board Nortatlas cargo planes and helicopters for Al-Tur, on the Gulf of Suez, and the overland assault on Tiran.
But the Israelis were unaware that few of the 1,600 Egyptian soldiers initially stationed in the Straits in fact remained at their posts. At ‘Amer’s insistence, the Sharm al-Sheikh garrison had had no contact with the army’s headquarters in Sinai, receiving its encoded orders directly from Cairo. “We knew nothing about the war except what we heard on the radio,” the local commander, Gen. ‘Abd al-Mun‘im Khalil, recalled. “But then, on June 6, I received instructions from ‘Amer to retreat. The instructions were carried out.” Khalil’s officers were appalled. One of them, Mahmud ‘Abd al-Hafiz, said that, “We were in a state of shock. The radio continued to broadcast victory songs and announcements about the destruction of the Israeli air force and that our troops were at the gates of Tel Aviv.” Lacking sufficient fuel for the 180-mile trip up the Gulf of Suez, ‘Abd al-Hafiz and his men covered most of the distance on foot. “I cannot describe to you what we felt during the retreat from Sharm al-Sheikh. We nearly cried, for we could not believe what was happening. We never saw one Israeli soldier.”
News that Sharm al-Sheikh had effectively been abandoned reached Murtagi just after midnight. Confused, he instructed elements of the 4th Armored Division to reinforce the position immediately. But the 4th had been one of the first divisions to cross the Canal from Sinai; some of the units were already approaching Cairo. Its commander, Maj. Gen. Sidqi al-Ghul, had received his orders personally from ‘Amer, and later claimed ignorance of Murtagi’s.
Six Days of War Page 40
