page_title: Operation Ha-Har
section_title: Fall of Bayt Nattif and Zakariyya
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Ha-Har / Background / Fall of Bayt Nattif and Zakariyya
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo shows the demolition of a house by saboteurs, during Israel's War of Independence in 1948 Other information According to Israel's copyright statute from 2007 (translation), if the copyrights are owned by the State, not acquired from a private person, and there is no special agreement between the State and the author — on 1 January of the 51st year after the creation of the work (paragraphs 36 and 42 in the 2007 statute), the photo is released to the public domain.
context_page_description: Operation Ha-Har', or Operation El Ha-Har, was an Israeli Defence Forces campaign against villages southwest of Jerusalem launched at the end of October 1948. The operation lasted from 19 to 24 October and was carried out by troops from the Harel and Etzioni Brigades. The villages were defended by units from the Egyptian army and local militias. By the end of the campaign over a dozen villages had been captured. It coincided with Operation Yoav which attacked Egyptian positions further south.
context_section_description: The following day (21 October), Moshe ("Morris") Ben-Dror, the commander of the Fifth Battalion, put together a battle corps consisting of two companies of riflemen, a support company and saboteurs, who were instructed to take Bayt Nattif and to destroy its houses, whose inhabitants had fought against the Convoy of thirty-five fallen soldiers who were sent to aid their beleaguered comrades in Gush Etzion. Many of the town's inhabitants had taken up refuge in nearby Umm al-Ra'us, but were prevented from returning. At night, a unit from the Fifth Battalion raided the village of Zakariyya (today, Zekharia), which action then opened the Elah Valley road to al-Khader (today, regional highway 375). Many of the villagers in Zakariyya had fled to the hills, but returned to live in their village and were allowed to stay there, until they were eventually resettled in 1950, with compensation, some in Ramlah, while others choosing to move to Jordan.
caption: Demolition of houses in Bayt Nattif, the Har'el Brigade, 1948
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