“How can I withdraw and leave behind a quarter of a million of my brothers, the people of Gaza, like chickens, slaughtered by the Jews and violating their honor? Do you want me to take them with me to Al-Arish? Or defend Rafah? No, I will not withdraw, whatever the result.”
(Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq, Commander of the Egyptian Forces in Palestine, in his response to the Egyptian Minister of War, Haider Pasha)
The United Nations decision to divide Palestine between the Palestinians and the Jews in late 1947 AD was like a bullet fired by the major powers that adopted this decision, led by the United States, Britain, Russia, France and others, against the Palestinians who, for thirty years between 1917-1947 AD, were subjected to planned and organized millions of migrations. For Jews from Europe with the support and protection of the British forces that were occupying Palestine at the time.
In the face of these unjust decisions, and the accompanying Zionists’ establishment of armed gangs such as the Irgun, the Haganah and others, which were accustomed to carrying out killing and displacement operations against the defenseless Palestinian population throughout the country, and committing massacres, the most famous of which was Deir Yassin and others, the Palestinians and Arab volunteers from Egypt, Syria and Jordan created groups To defend their land throughout the years of British occupation. When the British decided to end the mandate over Palestine in mid-May 1948, the armies of seven Arab countries – Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen – decided to participate with the Palestinian resistance in confronting the Nakba that befell them.
The path to Operation “Ya’ab”
We have monitored some of the forces of these countries achieving successes in some important battles, such as: Iraqi forces in JeninWe highlighted the role of the Egyptian forces and their success in the first days of the war in the battles of southern Palestine in the Negev, the Gaza Strip, Al-Majdal, and even Ashkelon, Bethlehem, and others. We also tried to evaluate the real reasons that ultimately led to… The failure of the Egyptian army And other Arab armies in achieving the greater goal of liberating Palestine from Zionist gangs and defeating the emerging Israeli state at that time.
The truth is that the capabilities of the Egyptian army at that time were very weak due to the deliberate negligence of the British who were still occupying Egypt, or of successive governments who did not care about the army. Either at the behest of the British themselves, or out of fear that the army would invade and enter the political arena. The result was that the army’s equipment prior to its entry into Palestine on May 15, 1948, was incomplete and late, in addition to the difficulty or even impossibility of having a strong supply from inside or outside to compensate for what the forces were consuming in battles at that time. For this reason, the advance of the Egyptian forces led by Major General Ahmed Ali Al-Mawawi was without sufficient armored cover, not to mention the lack of a clear plan for the war and the conduct of the battles.
For this reason, the Egyptian forces suffered heavy losses, especially in Operation “Joab” launched by the Zionists in October 1948, during which they were able to recover Majdal, Beersheba, and most of the areas of the Negev from the Egyptian forces. With the success of Operation “Joab,” the Al-Faluga connection route with the east and west was cut off. Israel took control of the coastal road between Ashdod and Gaza, and the combat situation was not only bad in this respect, but the condition of the Egyptian forces in terms of preparation and equipment was worse, as the cavalry equipment was worn out, and the artillery was insufficient, and many of them were damaged, in addition to the presence of Severe shortage of ammunition and lack of manpower (1).
In the face of these heavy losses and the hopeless situation, it was proposed at the beginning of November to withdraw the Egyptian army from Palestine to save the situation, especially after the isolation of an entire brigade (about 2,000 officers and soldiers) in the Al-Faluga region, and the transfer of ground and air superiority into the hands of the enemy. However, the military leadership in Cairo concluded that the Egyptian forces must remain despite the losses they suffered in order to preserve the remaining lands. Despite this, the Egyptian forces eventually withdrew to the “Gaza-Al-Awja” line. In the face of these losses, the Minister of War, Haider Pasha, decided to change the leadership of Egyptian forces in Palestine, so he decided to withdraw Major General Ahmed Ali Al-Mawawi and appointed Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq in his place.
Major General Ahmed Sadiq Fouad
Perhaps we should pause for a moment with this man who was known for his remarkable patriotic and military positions. He was even one of the victims of the British conspiracy with the Wafd government, which caused him to be imprisoned for two years, then referred to retirement while he was still a brigadier general in 1942, before he was summoned again. To lead the defeated Egyptian forces in Palestine on November 10, 1948. Who is this forgotten leader? How was he able to save the Gaza Strip that remains to this day, and reject the orders of the military leadership in Cairo to withdraw and leave half a million Palestinians in Gaza to face the extermination and criminality of the Zionist gangs?
He is Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq Pasha, who was granted the rank of Pasha by King Farouk after his great success in preserving the Gaza Strip and resisting the Jews at Rafah, Khan Yunis, and Al-Arish, which was the real success of the Egyptian forces in the battles of Palestine, and it was thanks to this man’s leadership that the Gaza Strip remained in its current form. From 1948 to the present day, despite the Zionist occupation of it in 1956 and then 1967, before the Zionists left it decades later.
His origins go back to the center of Zefta in the Gharbia Governorate in northern Egypt. He was born in Cairo on September 1, 1893 to an Egyptian father named Muhammad Sadiq and a Sudanese mother. He completed his primary studies there and graduated from the Military School of Cavalry in 1913, then joined the ranks of the Egyptian army in Sudan. For seven years. He played a major role in the expansion of the Egyptian army in El Fasher, Uganda, and Ethiopia. He suffered many wounds in those wars. He returned to Egypt in 1920, and in 1940 he entered the Military College to obtain the degree of “Staff of War.” When the British forced King Farouk in 1942 to appoint the Wafd government headed by Al-Nahhas Pasha, Brigadier General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq was one of the army commanders most supportive of the king against the crude English interference in Egyptian politics, their threatening of the palace with tanks, and their forcing the king to make the decisions they wanted (2).
Despite this, Al-Nahhas Pasha decided to dismiss him from the army and imprison him for a period of 23 months. When he was released from prison, he decided to refer him to retirement. He remained on retirement from 1944 until November 1948, when the army leadership in Cairo, headed by Haider Pasha, King Farouk and others, searched for a person with… His experience in assuming the mission of the Egyptian forces in Palestine, with the heavy defeats they had been exposed to, led to the unanimous choice of Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq, who accepted this mission with enthusiasm and stipulated that he direct the battles according to his own vision and with complete freedom, away from the command in Cairo except within the narrowest limits (3 ).
Major General Sadiq arrived in Gaza, and was able to restore confidence between the Egyptian forces and the people of Gaza, and also to get closer to the volunteers from the Muslim Brotherhood, who performed greatly in those battles under the leadership of Al-Sagh Mahmoud Labib, Kamel Al-Sharif, and others. On December 22, 1948, the Zionists launched Operation Horeb, meaning “The Eye,” against the Egyptian army to expel it permanently from Palestine in light of the stagnation of the position of the other Arab forces. This plan began following smaller movements, such as the occupation of sites protecting Egyptian roads, the mobilization of Zionist forces in front of the Egyptian forces’ position, as well as tactical deception operations aimed at diverting the attention of the Egyptian forces from the goal that the Zionists were planning.
Major General Sadiq refuses to withdraw from Gaza
The Zionists’ plan was to encircle the Egyptian forces from east to west until they reached the sea coast between Rafah and Al-Arish, with the aim of isolating these forces from Gaza, and also dividing them into small, weak groups that would be easy to eliminate later. They carried out a deceptive attack on Deir al-Balah and its surrounding sites, such as “Tabba 86,” which is a strategic hill because it overlooked the land and railway road connecting Gaza and Khan Yunis and also Al-Arish, which occupied the Egyptian forces led by Major General Sadiq in their desperate defense of it. The Jews were supported by huge weapons exported to them by the United States and Czechoslovakia, despite the embargo announced by the United Nations at the time. The armament and equipment of the Egyptian forces was weak.
The Jewish forces attacking at Hill 86 were estimated at approximately three thousand soldiers and officers, led by a veteran Russian military officer, to whom Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq witnessed military experience and sacrifice. He and his brother were killed along with hundreds of other Zionist dead thanks to the surrounding of the Egyptian forces and the Muslim Brotherhood forces led by Kamel Al-Sharif. The desert in all its aspects, and they proceeded precisely according to the plan drawn up for them by Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq, until they succeeded in defeating the Zionists (4).
On the other hand, historian Abdul Wahab Bakr (5) believes that the Jewish attack on “Teb 86” was not the real attack, but rather its purpose was to distract the Egyptian forces under the command of Major General Sadiq in Gaza from the real goal, and that the largest attack was launched several days later on the night of the 25th. December 26, 1948, through a wide encirclement movement towards “Al-Asluj – and Al-Awja (Awja Al-Hafir)” in the Negev, near Beersheba. In this fighting, the Egyptian defenses collapsed, and in the face of the Zionist attack, the Jews seized all the lands located between Beersheba and Auja al-Hafeer. About this, historian Arif al-Arif says: “On their way to Auja, they annihilated the Egyptian garrisons that were stationed in Asaluj, al-Sharif, and others, and whoever of the men of these garrisons they did not kill.” They captured him, and whoever was not killed or captured began to wander on his face in that vast desert. Even those fleeing were not safe from the harm of the Jewish planes… Terror spread among the soldiers, and the Egyptian leadership initially lost its control over them, so they began to flee” (6) .
Thus, the entire territory of the Negev fell into the hands of the Zionists, and the road to Sinai was open to them. They began to shout, saying, “Kadima Cairo,” meaning “Forward to Cairo.” In the meantime, they were able to capture two senior officers from the Egyptian army forces, with the rank of major general, and the soldiers left their weapons. And their cars, and the road was blocked for the rest in the back, many of which were loaded with weapons, equipment, and gasoline, and all of this fell as spoils into the hands of the Jews. Despite the attempt of the withdrawing forces to establish a defense line for the “Abu Uwaqila” area, which is now the Al-Hasana area in central Sinai, the Jews were quicker and blew up the bridge located near the place and occupied the area, and when they occupied “Abu Uwaqila” they were divided into two parts; A section headed towards the Ismailia road and they were able to reach an airport that was used by the British, 108 km from Ismailia (7). Perhaps it was Al-Maliz or Bardawil airport, but the Egyptian aviation was able to completely annihilate these forces.
As for the other group, they headed towards Al-Arish and approached the city’s airport. At the same time, they began attacking Gaza and Rafah. Egyptian military aircraft played a role in repelling a large part of this attack on Al-Arish and Rafah. Major General Sadiq realized that the Jewish attack on Al-Arish, Al-Hassanah, and Al-Maliz Military Airport was a deception intended to withdraw Egyptian forces from Rafah and Gaza to support Egyptian positions in Sinai. In fact, orders came from Haider Pasha, the Minister of War, demanding that he leave Gaza even before the Jews began their attack on the hill. 86 In Gaza, on December 23.
But Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq rejected these orders and sent to him saying: “How can I withdraw and leave behind a quarter of a million of my brothers, the people of Gaza, like chickens, slaughtered by the Jews and violating their honor? Do you want me to take them with me to Al-Arish? Or do I defend Rafah? No.” “I will not withdraw, whatever the result.” This confession was mentioned by Major General Sadiq to the historian of Palestine, Arif Al-Arif, in Cairo in 1954, saying to him: “Yes, by God, I disobeyed the order and did not withdraw, and if I had withdrawn, the Jews would have been able to use the Rafah road to attack me… The presence of the Egyptian army on that road was a military error, as The army stationed on it, if it is attacked, has no choice but to choose one of the two ways out by sea or surrender, and for this reason it was more appropriate for our army to take the Gaza-Beersheba road instead. This is what the English commander Lord Allenby did in World War I. As for us, we made a mistake if we did not care about Beersheba. Seven and we were not prepared to defend it” (8).
The Egyptian Air Force played a major role in striking the advance of the Zionist forces in Al-Arish and Rafah. Despite this, they tried to re-encircle it, but on January 7, 1949, the Security Council declared a truce, and America and Britain pressured Israel to withdraw, cease fire, and end Operation Horeb. As of January 13, Egypt and Israel entered into truce negotiations on the island of Rhodes, and thus the 1948 war led by Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen against the Zionists ended with its failure in its primary goal, which was expelling the Zionists and returning the usurped land to the Palestinians, after the Egyptian army was superior. In the first days of the fighting, its role declined and diminished until it reached defeat (9).
With this defeat and its political and psychological effects on the Palestinian and Egyptian entrants later; Major General Ahmed Fouad Sadiq is credited with his rejection of the orders issued to him by the Egyptian Minister of War, Haider Pasha, to withdraw from the Gaza Strip at the height of these events, and his adherence until the last moment to defending the Gaza Strip alongside the Muslim Brotherhood. He actually succeeded in repelling the Zionist attack on it, which made King Farouk bestow upon him the rank of pasha upon his return to Cairo after that. It is strange that no one has dealt with the biography of this man – as far as we have seen – in writing and exploring the depths of his personality in detail.
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Sources
- (1) Abdul Wahab Bakr: The Army in the 1948 War, pp. 132, 133.
- (2) Arif Al-Arif: Previous, pp. 808, 809.
- (3) Muhammad Saber Arab: February 4, 1942
- (4) Arif Al-Arif: Previous, pp. 801, 802.
- (5) Abdul Wahab Bakr: Previous, p. 136.
- (6) Arif Al-Arif: The Nakba of Palestine and Paradise Lost, p. 804.
- (7) Arif Al-Arif: the same as the previous one.
- (8) Arif Al-Arif: Previous, pp. 802, 803.
- (9) War in the Land of Peace, pp. 433-466.
