“The Iraqi commander, Lieutenant Colonel Omar Ali, confirmed to me when I visited him in Baghdad that the Jews killed in this battle were many, and that they had pulled out the bodies of many of their dead, and those who had not pulled them out, he counted them and found that they were three hundred and fifty, including the campaign commander and two girls.”
Historian of Palestine “Arif Al-Arif” during his visit to the commander of the Iraqi forces in Jenin, Lieutenant Colonel “Omar Ali”
Jenin is hardly mentioned without the mention of the refugee camps for the people and residents of the West Bank villages near it, which were seized by the Zionists during the Nakba in 1948, and this valiant city continues to stand in the face of Israeli aggression from that date to the present day. This city has a long history, as the Canaanite Arabs established a residential area on its spring, which was then known as “Ain Janim.” Jesus Christ – peace be upon him – passed through the city more than once on his way from Nazareth to Jerusalem, as historical narratives indicate. When the Muslims conquered Palestine, they changed its name to “Jenin” and added it to the Jordanian army, meaning the province of Jordan. The geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi also visited it. In the thirteenth century AD, it says in “Mu’jam al-Buldan” about it: “A good town between Nablus and Baisan in the land of Jordan, which has springs and water” (1).
Yaqut had visited it after its liberation from the Crusaders, who had fortified it with high walls at the hands of the Ayyubids led by Saladin. Saladin attacked it twice, the first in the year 580 AH, when the drillers of his soldiers were able to open gaps in its walls, and his army was able to enter it, seize it, and annihilate the Crusader force that was fortified. There, and the second after the Battle of Hattin in the year 583 AH when the Muslims entered it and reconstructed it. Sultan Saladin al-Ayyubi spent the night there in Shawwal in the year 588 AH on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus (2).
The city, like all of Palestine, later fell into the hands of the Mamluks and then the Ottomans, where it remained in their hands until the British General Allenby occupied it in September 1918 AD, and held a conference for the commanders of his armies there after they took control of all of Palestine. The British occupation remained there until May 1948 AD, contributing to accelerating the pace of Jewish immigration, settlement, protection, and supplying them with weapons and equipment to control the Palestinian territories. Because of these British injustices, a young man named “Ali Abu Al-Rub” from the nearby village of Qabatiya assassinated the British governor of the city, “Moffett,” on August 24, 1938 AD. Because of this incident, the British took revenge on the city and its people by demolishing its main market and many of the residents’ homes and throwing innocent people in prisons. This is similar to what the Israelis are doing today in the West Bank (3).
It has been proven that the British forces had prepared a plan to hand over the Palestinian cities to the Zionist gangs before the withdrawal, with full coordination and complicity, and the slogan of the Jewish gangs struck terror in the hearts of the Arab population. In order to intimidate them so that they would fail to resist, they committed horrific massacres, such as what happened in Deir Yassin, Al-Qastal, Tiberias, Jaffa, Haifa, and Beisan. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, one of the leaders of the Allied forces, acknowledged the fact that there was complete coordination between the Zionist gangs and the British government at the time to permanently displace the Palestinians from their lands, a plan that Israel seeks to this day. He said in his memoirs: “The Commissioner was The British in Palestine at this time, Sir Alan Cunningham. I met with Cunningham on November 29, 1946 AD and we reviewed the situation. Cunningham decided that the (British) army could not carry out the tasks related to it due to the restrictions imposed on it due to the interference of higher authorities and the spread of Zionist influence in London, and that there are well-placed plans to eliminate the remaining Arabs in Palestine so that Palestine becomes Jewish” (4).
Introductions to battle
And if the British left Palestine in May 1948 AD, and guaranteed a United Nations resolution from 1947 AD dividing it into two states between the Palestinians and the Jews, with the establishment of a national homeland for the Jews; This decision was the reason for five Arab armies to declare their defense of Palestine in order to liberate it from the Zionist gangs, namely Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, which led to the announcement of the Arab resistance from inside Palestine welcoming and supporting these forces.
The forces of the five Arab armies entered Palestine, and the Iraqi forces that entered Palestine across the Jordan River in late May 1948 AD, and were stationed in Nablus, Tulkarm, and Qalqilya, had an important and pivotal role in defending Palestine and saving many cities in the West Bank, especially Jenin, which The Zionists wanted to occupy it as a starting point for occupying the Triangle area and the rest of the areas in the West Bank.
The Jews had managed to occupy most of the villages surrounding the city of Jenin, and even the major cities in northern Palestine and on its coast in 1948, which raises questions about the secret of the steadfastness of this small city in particular. There is no doubt that Jenin took place in one of the largest, fiercest and most valiant battles during the war, in which Palestinian resistance fighters from the West Bank participated, as well as Iraqi army forces, which played a heroic role in defending the city and preventing it from falling into the hands of Israeli gangs at that time.
The occupation leadership ordered a unit called “Karmili” to attack Jenin, led by Mordechai McClave. The reason for this assignment was that this bloody unit had succeeded, prior to the battle of Jenin, in occupying the Haifa Bay area. Then the Zionists began their attack on Jenin early in the morning of Thursday, June 3, 1948. Their forces ranged between four thousand and five thousand fighters. They divided their forces into four divisions, three of which advanced the attack and the fourth remained in the rear to protect their backs. They came from the nearby Afula area, where they had previously occupied the villages of Zar’in, Sandalah, and Jalama. As for the resistance situation from within, it was weak, as Palestinian and Jordanian volunteers were stationed there, although the Jordanian company was forced to suddenly withdraw before the arrival of the Iraqi forces, which changed the impact of the confrontation significantly. ( 5).
Victory and pride
The Zionist gangs cut off the road between Nablus and Jenin, and began attacking the city from three sides. During this attack, an Iraqi faction consisting of 37 soldiers reached the nearby Tal Al-Kharouba area, accompanied by 50 volunteers from the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank. When this faction realized that it would not be able to resist the numbers of Zionist guerrilla forces due to the large difference in numbers and equipment, it was forced to seek help from the Iraqi leadership, which provided it with an infantry company consisting of 80 fighters equipped with four mortars, four machine guns, five armored vehicles, and an engineering faction, all under the command of the Iraqi officer, Lieutenant Colonel “Noah.” Abdullah Al-Chalabi,” then another company came led by Officer “Mohsen Al-Azami,” and with this new extension, the number of Iraqi forces in Jenin became 250 fighters, in addition to 50 Palestinian volunteers (6).
Despite this new support, the superiority in numbers, equipment, and air force that the Zionists possessed at that time made them control the hills surrounding the city. The Iraqi and Palestinian forces were forced to withdraw and station themselves in the Jenin Citadel for fortification and defence. A large number of the city’s people, including the elderly, women, and children, who had not left the city, entered with them. The city and they preferred to stay there. The Jews began to attack with mortars and machine guns the castle where the resistance was led by the Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel Noah al-Jabali, who began to return fire, and the fighting continued between the two sides throughout the night. The Jews had occupied most of the neighborhoods of Jenin, and after this valiant resistance, the ammunition of the resistance fighters in the castle almost ran out. The entire town and its castle would fall into the hands of the Zionists, had it not been for the arrival of an Iraqi regiment at seven o’clock in the morning on June 3, 1948 AD, which had a great role in changing the shape of the battle (7).
This Iraqi regiment was led by Lieutenant Colonel Omar Ali, and was armed with five hundred rifles, four mortars, eight machine guns, and other weapons. The Jews tried to repel the attack of this regiment so that it would not advance and support the besieged people in the city’s citadel, but it was able to defeat the Jewish forces in the Qabatiya area, three kilometers from Jenin, and then advanced in an attempt to rescue the besieged. Lieutenant Colonel Omar suggested to Lieutenant Colonel Noah that he withdraw in order to preserve lives, but the latter rejected the proposal, saying: “He will not be able to do that because he is besieged first, and if he could, he would not have done that because there are women, old people, and children in the citadel, and he must think about their fate. And if he complied with the order and withdrew.” “Jenin would have miscarried and her features would have been lost” (8).
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After this refusal, Lieutenant Colonel Noah asked his colleague, Lieutenant Colonel Omar, to aim his cannons and bombs at the Jewish positions that he had specified precisely for him, so he did so and bombarded them intensively. In return, the Zionists threw their fire at the Iraqi forces that were advancing on the main street of the city. In the face of intense fire and shelling, the forces and the Palestinian volunteers decided to rally behind the Jews, and they were able to control the slopes of Burqin, forcing the Zionists to flee after fierce fighting. When the right Jewish wing failed, they retreated to the station area, and the left wing remained trying to prevent the Iraqi forces from completing the crossing of the city on the Nablus-Jenin main road. But these attempts failed after a strong confrontation between Palestinians and Iraqis in which 20 Zionists were killed. At four o’clock in the afternoon of that day, June 3, another Iraqi regiment arrived under the leadership of Shlimon Michael (8).
Michael’s regiment joined the Iraqi Omar regiment, and remained in a heated confrontation for the rest of the day, but when night fell, 100 Palestinian volunteers who came from Wadi Burqin joined them. Then the company of the Iraqi second regiment arrived, led by “Hasib Ali Tawfiq,” and in the face of this support and successive beatings. From the front and back, the Jews were forced to withdraw at 11 a.m. on Friday, June 4, after the entire city of Jenin was cleansed of this brutal Zionist aggression.
Palestine historian Arif Al-Aref later visited Iraq and met with Lieutenant Colonel Omar Ali and Lieutenant Colonel Noah Chalabi, who told him important details about the heroism of the Iraqi forces in the citadel and city of Jenin and the losses of the Zionist enemy there, about which he says: “The Iraqi commander, Lieutenant Colonel Omar Ali, confirmed to me when I visited him in Baghdad and said that the Jews killed in this battle were many, and that they pulled out the bodies of many of their dead, and those who did not pull them out counted them and found that they were three hundred and fifty… As for the wounded, they were more than that, as the residents of Jenin confirmed to me that they saw from a distance thirty of the largest Jewish armored cars, which were The dead and wounded were transported, and as for the dead Arabs, they were less than a hundred” (9).
The city of Jenin still contains the remains of the 56 Iraqi martyrs, and 20 Palestinian combat martyrs and 46 civilians were martyred in this battle. The Iraqi officers and soldiers played a major role in this battle in the victory, especially the commanders Noah Chalabi, who is from the city of Mosul, and Lieutenant Colonel Omar Ali, born in Kirkuk; Thanks to their steadfastness and the courage of their soldiers, the Palestinians retained the city of Jenin, which to this day continues to stand firm in the face of Israeli attempts to eliminate its camps and end its resistance.
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Sources
(1) Dictionary of Countries 2/202.
(2) Mustafa Al-Dabbagh: Our Country is Palestine 2/35.
(3) Mustafa Al-Dabbagh: Our Country is Palestine 2/48.
(4) Marshal Montgomery’s memoirs, p. 302.
(5) The Battle of Jenin… The Iraqis ransom Palestine.
(6) Arif Al-Arif: The Nakba of Palestine and the Lost Paradise 3/524.
(7) Arif Al-Arif: Previous 3/526.
(8) Arif Al-Arif: the same as the previous one.
(9) Arif Al-Arif: Previous 3/526, 527.
