Battles of the Kinarot Valley

Breakdown of the battles on May 18–19 (Battle of Tzemah)

At about 04:30 on May 18,[23] the Syrian 1st Brigade, now commanded by Brigadier General Husni al-Za'im and consisting of about 30 vehicles, including tanks, advanced west towards Samakh (Tzemah) in two columns—one across the coast, and another flanking from the south. A contingent was allocated further south, in order to secure the safety of the main force by flanking Sha'ar HaGolan and Masada from the west. It entered a stalemate with a new Israeli position northwest of the two villages.[1][24]

The coastal column shelled the Israeli positions and inflicted enormous damage; the Israelis were either dug in within shallow trenches made for infantry warfare with no head cover, or in Samakh's clay houses that were vulnerable to heavy weapons. The Israelis were eventually forced to abandon their posts and concentrate in the police station, where they brought the wounded. The deputy commander of the Golani Brigade, Tzvika Levkov, also arrived at the station, and called reinforcements from Sha'ar HaGolan and Tiberias, which did not manage to arrive on time.[23]

A soldier who participated in the battle reported that only 20 uninjured troops were left to defend the police station as the second Syrian column reached Samakh (Tzemah). The only heavy weapon the defenders possessed was ineffective against Syrian armor.[23] Fearing their forces would be completely cut off, an order was given by the Haganah to retreat and leave the wounded, Tzvika Levkov among them. The retreat was disorganized and heavy Israeli casualties were recorded as Samakh's police station fell.[1][24] Reinforcements from the Deganias, commanded by Moshe Cohen, arrived but were immediately hit by the Syrians and did not significantly affect the battle.[1] Aharon Israeli, a platoon commander in these reinforcements, wrote that it was clear as soon as they arrived that the battle was over. Cohen would not hear of a retreat initially, but when the force saw Levkov fall into a trench, they hastily withdrew.[25]

A Palmach fighter at Samakh

On the same day, Syrian aircraft bombed the Israeli village Kinneret and the regional school Beit Yerah, on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. By evening, Samakh (Tzemah) had fallen and a new Israeli defensive line was set up in the Deganias, facing the Syrian counterparts.[1] At night, a Palmach company from Yiftach's 3rd Battalion attempted to recapture Samakh's police station. They stealthily reached the school next to the station, but the assault on the actual fort was warded off.[26] On the morning of May 19, a message was sent from Sha'ar HaGolan and Masada that they were preparing for an evacuation, although when the order was given to stay put, the villages had already been abandoned, mostly to Afikim.[1] In the morning, when the villagers carried out an order to return to their positions, local Arabs were already present at the location.[26] The Syrian troops then captured the villages without a fight,[24] and proceeded to loot and destroy them.[27] Aharon Israeli wrote that an order was given not to disclose the flight of Masada and Sha'ar HaGolan's residents, but this became clear as fire and smoke rose from the villages, and hurt the morale of the Israelis making defensive preparations in the Deganias.[28]

The counterattack on the police station failed but delayed the Syrian attack on the Deganias by twenty-four hours. In the evening of May 19, a delegation from the Deganias arrived in Tel Aviv to ask for reinforcements and heavy weapons. One of its members later wrote that David Ben-Gurion told them he could not spare them anything, as "The whole country is a front line". He also wrote that Yigael Yadin, the Chief Operations Officer of the Haganah, told him that there was no alternative to letting the Arabs approach to within twenty to thirty meters of the gates of Degania and fight their tanks in close combat.[29] Yadin prepared reinforcements, and gave an order: "No point should be abandoned. [You] must fight at each site". He and Ben-Gurion argued over where to send the Yishuv's only battery of four pre-World War I 65 mm mountain guns (nicknamed "Napoleonchikim"), which had no proper sights. Ben-Gurion wanted to send them to Jerusalem, but Yadin insisted that they be sent to the Kinarot valley, and Ben-Gurion eventually agreed.[30]

On the night of May 18–19, a platoon departed from Ein Gev by sea to Samra and raided the Syrian contingent in Tel al-Qasr. The raid failed, but may have delayed the Syrian attack on Degania, thus giving its defenders twenty-four hours to prepare. A second raid, by a Yiftach company, crossed the Jordan and struck the Syrian camp at the Customs House, near the main Daughters of Jacob Bridge (Bnot Yaakov Bridge). After a short battle, the Syrian defenders (one or two companies) fled. The Palmachniks destroyed the camp and several vehicles, including two armored cars, without losses.[31]

Breakdown of the battles on May 20–22 (Battle of Degania)

After the fall of Tzemah, the Haganah command realized the importance of the campaign in the region, and made a clear separation between the Kinarot Valley, and the Battle of Gesher fought against Transjordan[32] and Iraq to the south.[3] On May 18, Moshe Dayan, who had been born in Degania, was given command of all forces in the area, after having been charged with creating a commando battalion in the 8th Brigade just a day before.[33][34] A company of reinforcements from the Gadna program was allocated, along with 3 PIATs. Other reinforcements came in the form of a company from the Yiftach Brigade and another company of paramilitaries from villages in the Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley.[1]

The Israelis called the reinforcements assuming this was the main Syrian thrust. The Syrians were not intending to carry out any further operation south of the Sea of Galilee and planned to make their main effort further north, near the Bnot Ya'akov bridge. On May 19, the Iraqis were about to drive west through Nablus toward Tulkarm, and asked the Syrians to make a diversion in the Degania area to protect their right flank. The Syrians complied, their main objective being to seize the bridge across the river north of Degania Alef, thus blocking any Israeli attack from Tiberias against the Iraqi line of communications.[24]

Heavy Syrian shelling of Degania Alef started at about 04:00 on May 20 from the Samakh police station, by means of 75 mm cannons, and 60 and 81 mm mortars.[21] The barrage lasted about half an hour.[30] At 04:30 on May 20, the Syrian army began its advance on the Deganias and the bridge over the Jordan River north of Degania Alef.[5] Unlike the attack on Samakh (Tzemah), this action saw the participation of nearly all of the Syrian forces stationed at Tel al-Qasr, including infantry, armor and artillery.[1] The Israeli defenders numbered about 70 persons (67 according to Aharon Israeli's head count[28]), most of them not regular fighters, with some Haganah and Palmach members. Their orders were to fight to the death. They had support from three 20 mm guns at Beit Yerah, deployed along the road from Samakh to Degania Alef. They also had a Davidka mortar, which exploded during the battle, and a PIAT with fifteen projectiles.[30]

At night, a Syrian expeditionary force attempted to infiltrate Degania Bet, but was caught and warded off, which caused the main Syrian force to attack Degania Alef first.[1] At 06:00, the Syrians started a frontal armored attack, consisting of 5 tanks, a number of armored vehicles and an infantry company.[5] The Syrians pierced the Israeli defense, but their infantry was at some distance behind the tanks. The Israelis knocked out four Syrian tanks and four armored cars with 20 mm cannons, PIATs and Molotov cocktails.[35] Meanwhile, other defenders kept small arms fire on the Syrian infantry, who stopped in citrus groves a few hundred meters from the settlements. The surviving Syrian tanks withdrew back to the Golan.[24] At 07:45, the Syrians halted their assault and dug in, still holding most of the territory between Degania Alef's fence and Samakh's police fort.[30] They left behind a number of lightly damaged or otherwise inoperable tanks that the Israelis managed to repair.[36]

Despite the Syrian superiority in numbers and equipment, the destruction of a multitude of armored vehicles and the infantry's failure to infiltrate Degania Alef was the likely cause for the retreat of the main Syrian force to Samakh (Tzemah). A less-organized and sparsely numbered armored and infantry force forked off to attack Degania Bet.[1] Eight tanks, supported by mortar fire, moved within 400 yards of the settlement defense, where they stopped to provide fire support for an infantry attack. The Syrians made two failed attempts to breach the Israeli small arms fire defense and gave up the attempt.[37] Against this force, the Israelis had about 80 people and one PIAT.[38] The defenses in Degania Bet were disorganized and there were not enough trenches. They also had no communication link to the command, so Moshe Dayan sent one of his company commanders to assess the situation.[39]

A house in Degania after the Syrian bombardment

While the battle was taking place, the 65 mm artillery, four Napoleonchik canons, reached the front in the middle of the day and were placed on the Poria–Alumot ridge.[1] It was the first Israeli artillery to be used in the war.[37] At 13:20, they began to fire at the Syrians, and after about 40 rounds the latter began to retreat.[40] The Israelis also fired into Samakh, where the Syrian officers, who had until then believed that the Israelis had nothing that could hit their headquarters, took shelter. One projectile hit the Syrian ammunition depot in the village, and others ignited fires in the dry fields.[38] While the soldiers who operated the cannons (still lacking sights) were not proficient in handling them, an acceptable level of accuracy was achieved after practice shots into the Sea of Galilee. In all, the artillery fire took the Syrian army by complete surprise, and the latter decided to regroup and retreat to Tel al-Qasr, also recalling the company at Sha'ar HaGolan and Masada.[1] A total of 500 shells were fired by the Israeli artillery.[39] Syrian officers may have shot some of their fleeing soldiers.[38]

There were two other reasons for the Syrian withdrawal. The 3rd Battalion from the Palmach's Yiftach Brigade had been sent by boat during the previous night across the sea to Ein Gev, planning to assault and capture Kafr Harib. It was noticed and shelled by the Syrians, but one of the companies managed to climb up the Golan. It carried out a smaller raid at dawn, bombing water carriers and threatening the Syrian 1st Brigade's line of communications.[37][41] The second reason was that they were running out of ammunition: Husni al-Za'im had been promised replenishment, and attacked Degania short of ammunition. Za'im ordered a withdrawal when his troops ran out of ammunition. The replenishment was instead sent to the 2nd Brigade further north. The Israelis were not aware of this, and attributed the Syrian withdrawal to surprise at the Israeli artillery fire.[37]

The first Syrian tank damaged near Degania Alef's gates, which has been preserved on the location, was the subject of a historiographic dispute when Baruch "Burke" Bar-Lev, a retired IDF colonel and one of Degania's native defenders at the time, claimed that he was the one who stopped the tank with a Molotov cocktail.[46] However, his account was rebutted by an IDF Ordnance Corps probe, which in 1991 determined that a PIAT shot had killed the tank's crew. Shlomo Anschel, a Haifa resident who also participated in the battle, told Haaretz in 2007 that the tank was hit by PIAT fire from a Golani soldier, and that the Molotov cocktail could not possibly have hit the crew.[47]

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