page_title: Battle of Ayun Kara
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Ayun Kara / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Original caption: "A memorial erected by the people of Richon Le Zion to the memory of the New Zealanders who fell at Ayun Kara on November 14, 1917".
context_page_description: The Battle of Ayun Kara was an engagement in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign during the First World War. The battle was fought between the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and a similar-sized rearguard from the Turkish 3rd Infantry Division, which was part of the XXII Corps of the Ottoman Eighth Army under Kress von Kressenstein.
  Following their success in the battles of Beersheba, Gaza, and Mughar Ridge, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force was pursuing the retreating Turkish forces north. The New Zealanders, part of the ANZAC Mounted Division, were on the division's left heading towards Rishon LeZion, when nine miles south of Jaffa they encountered the Turkish rearguard on the edge of sand dunes to the west of the villages of Surafend el Harab and Ayun Kara. The Turkish forces consisted of around 1,500 infantry, supported by machine-guns and artillery.
  The battle started in the afternoon with the New Zealanders caught in the open. Despite Turkish artillery, machine-gun fire, and infantry assaults, the New Zealanders gradually fought their way forward.
  The New Zealanders won the battle for the cost of 44 dead and 81 wounded.
context_section_description: By 16:15 fighting had been going on for two and three quarter hours when a squadron of the Wellington Regiment carried out a bayonet charge against a close Ottoman position. It was too much for the Ottoman units whose fighting strength gave way. They fell back beyond Ayun Kara pursued by rifle and machine-gun fire as neither regiment was in a fit state to follow. The Ottoman 3rd Division left behind some 400 dead in front of the Auckland's position alone; although others have quoted totals of between 150 and 162 Ottoman dead. The New Zealanders captured great numbers of machine-guns (some with prismatic sights) including two Lewis guns. Their casualties numbered 175; three officers and twenty-nine other ranks killed, eleven officers and 132 other ranks wounded with the Auckland Regiment suffering eighty-nine of those casualties.
caption: The memorial erected by the people of Richon le Zion to the memory of the New Zealanders who fell on 14 November 1917
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