page_title: Sha'ar HaGai
section_title: 1947–1948 war
hierarchical_section_title: Sha'ar HaGai / 1947–1948 war
caption_attribution_description: עברית: טרקטור גורר אמבולנס במעלה דרך בורמה (ישראל) בשנת 1948 English: according to the Israel national photo collection A BULLDOZER tows A truck ON THE "BURMA" ROAD TO JERUSALEM, date 14/06/1948, photographer:Hans Pinn Ykantor Ykantor (talk) 16:02, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
context_page_description: Sha'ar HaGai in Hebrew, and Bab al-Wad or Bab al-Wadi in Arabic, lit. Gate of the Valley in both languages, is a point on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, 23 km from Jerusalem, where the road begins to ascend through a deep valley flanked by steep rocky slopes, named in Arabic Wadi Ali.
context_section_description: During the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and into the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, this area and the nearby police fort at Latrun saw fierce fighting between Arab forces and Jewish convoys on the way to blockaded Jerusalem. Bab al-Wad and the defile it guards changed hands between the Arab Liberation Army supported by Arab irregulars, and Jewish Palmach and Haganah units, until April 20 1948, when the Arabs recaptured the heights around Bab al-Wad closing off the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road.
  From mid-May 1948 on, the fort at Latrun, only two kilometres west of Bab al-Wad, was held by the Arab Legion, the very efficient, British-trained and commanded army of Transjordan. The Palmach's 10th (Harel) Brigade under the command of Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin, future prime minister of Israel, managed to capture Bab al-Wad itself, but the road section west of it, controlled from Latrun, remained in Jordanian hands until 1967, cutting off this main access route to Jerusalem. In order to bypass the Arab-held bottleneck, the Israelis constructed the Burma Road, named after the famous World War II road into China. This very steep bypass road was in use during the first, crucial part of the war, being replaced after just six months by a longer but safer detour route.
caption: A bulldozer tows a truck on the "Burma Road" to Jerusalem, June 1948
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