page_title: Battle for Jerusalem
section_title: Blockade at Latrun and Bab al-Wad
hierarchical_section_title: Battle for Jerusalem / Blockade at Latrun and Bab al-Wad
caption_attribution_description: English: Looting in the Jewish Quarter May/June 1948
context_page_description: The Battle for Jerusalem occurred from December 1947 to 18 July 1948, during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine. The Jewish and Arab populations of Mandatory Palestine and later the Israeli and Jordanian armies fought for control of Jerusalem.
  Under the UN Partition Plan, Jerusalem was to be placed under international rule in a corpus separatum. Fighting nevertheless immediately broke out in the city between Jewish and Arab militias, with bombings and attacks by both sides.
  Starting in February 1948, Arab militia under Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni blockaded the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, preventing the supply of the Jewish population. This blockade was broken in mid-April by Operation Nachshon and Operation Maccabee.
  On 14 May and the following days, Etzioni and Harel brigades supported by Irgun troops launched several operations aiming to take over the Arab side of the city. In the meantime, the Arab Legion had deployed in the area of Palestine dedicated to the Arab state, not entering the Corpus separatum but massively garrisoning Latrun to blockade West Jerusalem once again.
context_section_description: Following the outbreak of disturbances at the end of 1947 the road between Tel Aviv and Jewish Jerusalem became increasingly difficult for Jewish vehicles. Arab forces tried to cut off the road to Jerusalem from the coastal plain, where the majority of the Jewish population resided. The Arabs blocked access to Jerusalem "at Latrun and Bab al-Wad," a narrow valley surrounded by Arab villages on hills on both sides. The breaking of the siege of Jerusalem and the annexation of the captured areas to the Jewish state became primary goals for the Israelis in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Ambushes by Palestinian Arab irregulars became more frequent and more sophisticated. The intention of the besieging forces was to isolate the 100,000 Jewish residents of the city from the rest of the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine and, in the case of the Jordanian forces, to capture East Jerusalem (including the Old City). 
  In December 1947 the Jewish Agency set up the Jerusalem Emergency Committee, headed by Dov Yosef, which stockpiled food and fuel. In January the Committee estimated 4,500 tons a month was needed. They were given 50,000 Palestine pounds credit with the Histadrut's wholesalers, Hamashbir Hamerkazi. In January 1948 the number of trucks supplying Jewish Jerusalem had fallen to thirty per day. By March the daily average number of trucks reaching Jerusalem was six. By the end of March it was clear that food supplies for civilians in Jewish Jerusalem would run out. On 1 April The Times estimated that the Jewish population of Jerusalem required a minimum of 50 truckloads per week. On 3 April, The Scotsman reported that a spokesman at a meeting of Arab military leaders in Damascus had announced that Jerusalem would be "strangled" by a blockade.
  One estimate of the size of the opposing forces at the beginning of March 1948 gives the Arabs 5,300 men in Jerusalem and surrounding district, including 300 Iraqi irregulars and 60 Yugoslav Moslems. Jewish forces included the Haganah's Etzioni Brigade of 1,200 with another 1,200 second line troops, commanded by David Shaltiel. In addition there was a Jewish Home Guard of 2,500, and 500 members of the dissident organisations, Irgun and Lehi.
caption: Arab plundering of the Jewish Quarter after its inhabitants' expulsion
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