Battle of Yad Mordechai The Battle of Yad Mordechai was fought between Egypt and Israel in the 1948 Arab - Israeli War , at the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai . The Egyptians attacked the communal village several times throughout May 19 and May 20 , but failed to capture it . A final attack was launched on May 23 , in which the Egyptians succeeded in capturing part of Yad Mordechai , following which the Israeli defenders withdrew . Yad Mordechai finally fell to the Egyptians on May 24 after hours of bombardment of the vacated kibbutz . The kibbutz residents , aided by twenty Hagannah fighters , imposed a five - day delay on the Egyptians . This gave Israeli forces time to prepare for the Egyptians ' northward advance , and they succeeded in halting the Egyptian advance at Ad Halom less than a week later . Background . Yad Mordechai is a small kibbutz in southern Israel , founded in the 1930s and renamed in 1943 after Mordechaj Anielewicz , the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising . The kibbutz , perched on a hill , dominated the coastal road midway between Gaza and Majdal ( today Ashkelon ) . Egypt had dispatched an expeditionary force of around 10 , 000 men under the command of Major General Ahmad Ali al - Mwawi to Palestine in April 1948 . Mwawi had separated his forces into two parts , one to march towards Jerusalem , the other to advance up the coast to Tel Aviv . The Egyptians had bypassed several settlements along their route of advance , but on reaching Yad Mordechai on May 16 , Mwawi decided that the settlement was too large and well defended to be simply bypassed . The Egyptians had the benefit of armor , artillery and air support . They also mustered 2 , 500 soldiers for the assault , far outnumbering the commune ' s 130 defenders . An assembly of the kibbutz members decided on the evacuation of the women and children . On the night of May 18 – 19 , a small Israeli armored column reached the kibbutz and extracted its 92 children . Left behind were 110 members ( twenty of them women ) and two squads of Palmach niks , equipped with light weapons , a medium machine gun and a PIAT hand - held anti - tank weapon . Battle . The Egyptians prepared for their assault for two days . Just after dawn on May 19 , two battalions of infantry and one armored battalion attacked the village with artillery support . The Egyptians succeeded in breaching the perimeter fence , but after three hours of heavy fighting , were repulsed , leaving behind dozens of dead ; the kibbutz suffered five dead and eleven wounded . Cairo radio announced prematurely that the settlement had fallen . The following day the Egyptians launched several more attacks ( four according to Pollack , seven according to Morris ) , all of which were repulsed . Thirteen more Israelis died and twenty were wounded ; dozens of Egyptians died as well . That night the Palmach sent in a platoon of reinforcements , including six deserters from the British military , with another PIAT and three machine guns . The Egyptians were hampered by the ineffectiveness of their artillery , and the difficulty in coordinating infantry and armor . After the attacks on May 20 , the Egyptians reorganized as Mwawi improved the coordination between his forces . The Egyptians spent May 21 – 22 shelling the kibbutz . The Egyptian air force prevented a relief column from reaching the site . The settlement ' s buildings were leveled and the defenders had become " inhabitants of caves and tunnels " . By May 22 , with dozens of wounded , the defenders were pleading for permission to withdraw . The final Egyptian attack on May 23 saw the armor providing much better support for the infantry , and the Egyptians occupied a part of the settlement . At night , the Israeli defenders , exhausted from the fighting and low on ammunition , withdrew from the settlement . The Israeli withdrawal was unknown to the Egyptians and the following day , they opened up with a four - hour artillery barrage on the now empty kibbutz . Following the barrage , they occupied the settlement , ending the battle . Aftermath . The Israeli delaying action at Yad Mordechai bought the newly established Israeli Defense Forces ( IDF ) time to organize a defensive line against the northward Egyptian drive toward Tel Aviv . On November 5 , in the days following Operation Yoav , Israeli forces retook the ruins of the kibbutz .