Shokeda Forest and the Black Arrow Memorial

The Darom Adom (Red South) festival is held annually in the northern Negev, a desert and semi-desert region of southern Israel. I have blogged about it before, back in 2015 and 2014. Fields of anemones, a perennial in the buttercup (Ranunculaceae) family, colour the desert red and are a huge attraction, bringing thousands to the area. Last month Mister Handmade in Israel and I decided on the spur of the moment to visit the Shokeda Forest once again and, though the anemone season was nearing its end, the green fields all around were still flecked with numerous red patches.

The Shokeda Forest is a eucalyptus forest located east of Moshav Shokeda in the north-western Negev region (the southern part of Israel, near the Gaza strip). The KKL-JNF (Jewish National Fund) began to plant the forest in the 1950s. The woodland includes eucalyptus, tamarisks, pines and casuarinas, and it is studded with well-preserved heritage sites, play areas, picnic sites and cycling trails.

According to a survey conducted by the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority, the anemone is the most recognised and loved flower by Israelis. In 2013 anemones were chosen as the national flower of Israel. Though the red anemones can be found across Israel, the flowers in the north are red and white, but in the south, the anemones are only red. This is thought to be because the southern anemones are "less spoilt" and can survive the harsher desert climate. 

After our walk through the forest, we drove the short distance to the Black Arrow Memorial, Andartat Hetz Shahor in Hebrew. It is located in the Gaza Envelope, the populated area of Israel that is within 7 kilometres of the Gaza Strip border.

The Black Arrow Memorial, which overlooks the Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, Jabalia and Gaza city area and is situated only 900 metres from the border with the Gaza Strip, commemorates the battle heritage of the Paratroop Brigade that fought in reprisal operations in response to enemy infiltrations into Israel in the years leading up to the 1956 Sinai Campaign. The memorial contains stone pillars bearing descriptions of the paratroopers retaliatory actions, as well as schemes of battles fought by the corps. Another memorial commemorates the fallen soldiers. Audio explanations in Hebrew and English at the site explain the background to the retaliatory actions and operations in the then Egyptian-held Gaza and the Jordanian-held West Bank.

Some background information. In the 1950s and 1960s Israel suffered loss of lives and property damage from infiltrators from neighbouring countries. The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) conducted military reprisal operations as a deterrent. Between the end of the War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign of 1956, over five hundred Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks and over a thousand others were injured. Commando Unit 101 was established in August 1953 to provide a military response. The unit carried out cross-border patrols and operations for five months until it merged with the 890 Paratroop Battalion. The commander of Unit 101 was Major Ariel Sharon, who later became a general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.

In 1989 a group of 890 Battalion veterans established a lookout point in memory of their commander, Captain Saadia Elkayam, who fell in battle during a reprisal operation in Gaza in February 1955. One year later the Black Arrow Association was founded. Black Arrow was the IDF code name for the Gaza operation in which Elkayam fell. Working together with the regional council in the north-western Negev and KKL-JNF, the Association transformed the Black Arrow site into an impressive memorial that perpetuates the memory and legacy of the fallen paratroopers and tells the story of the reprisal operations.

The Gaza Strip viewed from the Black Arrow Memorial

Close to the memorial is the old Armistice Commission building and a site that commemorates the first water pipeline to the Negev. The Armistice House is a single-storey house with a tiled roof which served as a venue for meetings between Israeli armistice commission delegations and representatives from Egypt when they were negotiating a ceasefire. The building witnessed a number of important events: after Israel's War of Independence it hosted talks on the armistice agreement with Egypt, which was signed in Rhodes; it served as a meeting place where Israelis and Egyptians could discuss infringements of agreements and settle their differences; the captives from the Bat Galim, the ship seized by the Egyptians after it attempted to pass through the Suez Canal in 1954, were returned to this spot; and the bodies of IDF soldiers who fell in the 1956 Sinai Campaign and other military operations were brought here too.

At a bend in the road leading to the Black Arrow Memorial a rusted metal standpipe bearing an explanatory sign commemorates the first water pipeline to the Negev. In 1947 Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, drilled fifteen wells in the area and a pipeline was laid to carry water to the three KKL-JNF outposts and the eleven points of Jewish settlement established in the Negev at the end of the Yom Kippur fast in 1946. The pipeline crossed this site.

Photo credit: Yaakov Shkolnik

* This post has been shared on Sharon's Souvenirs, Wandering Camera, Nature Notes, Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), My Corner of the World and Friday Bliss.

Egrof Varomach Memorial, Kula Forest

The Egrof Varomach ("Fist & Lance") memorial for the 147 fallen soldiers of the 27th Brigade (later the 60th and 204th Brigade) can be found in the Kula forest. The brigade was founded in 1952 as the first reserve armoured brigade in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). They took part in many battles, including the Sinai War, the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Lebanon War, until the brigade's dissolution in 2014.

The memorial site includes two half-tracks and an AMX-13 tank which was damaged by the Egyptians during the Six-Day War. It was originally erected near Refidim in Sinai and in 1980, prior to the evacuation of Sinai following the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, the monument was moved to the outskirts of the Kula Forest. Following road construction 500 metres east, the monument was renovated ahead of Israel's Remembrance Day in 2018.

A path with the green and black badge of the Egrof Varomach brigade on both sides leads to the memorial site. At this site, a wide plaza is enclosed by a fence and there is a large seating area. Beside the half-tracks and tank, there is a sign with details in Hebrew and English about the brigade and the battles in which it participated. Above the sign is the badge of the unit, at the top of which is the word Yizkor, "Remember". A memorial wall bears the names of  the fallen.

The Kula forest offers another memorial, nature, ruins and even a Roman mausoleum. We last explored it in August 2020. This time, after visiting the Egrof Varomach memorial, I had a lovely time photographing the early Crown anemone and Persian cyclamen, which were just beginning to bloom. I also spotted Arisarum vulgare, or Friar's Cowl, an unusual-looking wildflower which is a member of the Arum family and occurs in the Mediterranean region from October through until March.

There were just a few beautiful anemone, or calaniot in Hebrew, to be seen. A few weeks later and no doubt the fields are now covered with magnificent carpets of bright red, with the odd white, purple and pink head scattered between them. Anemone have a symbolic place in Israeli culture as well as a natural one. During the time of the British Mandate, the term was attached as a nickname to the British soldiers, due to the bright red colour of their berets. A song about the flowers, written by the Israeli poet Nathan Altermann in 1945 and made famous by the Yemeni-Israeli singer Shoshana Damari, then became used as a protest song against the British. The song, about the life of a young girl and about anemones which are always blooming all her life long, is one of the most played, performed, loved and cherished songs in Israel today.

The Persian cyclamen, or rakefet in Hebrew, is one of the popular winter flowers in Israel. It is a delicate flower, but it can grow almost anywhere, even in rocks and shady forest groves. Cyclamen bloom throughout late winter and into spring, adding a touch of beauty to cool-weather hikes. They range in colour from pale pink to deep purple. Its petals grow upward instead of outward, so the flowers look like they're stretching up to the sky. It is said that King Solomon saw the cyclamen as the model for his crown, and one of the Hebrew nicknames that has stuck to it is "Nezer Shlomo," King Solomon's crown. The tubers at the root of these cyclamen plants have historically been used to make soap.

The Palestine iris, or Iris eretz Israeli, below, is a white to yellowish flower, though in the south of Israel, light blue specimens can be found growing in the warm dry conditions. It is a low-growing plant rising to a height of 13cm. The fragrant flowers are short-lived, produce nectar and are known to bloom in the morning. It was first found in Mesopotamia, part of Syria, and has been used as a medicinal plant in the Middle East for urinary tract infections by boiling the leaves or the rhizomes in water.

The Kula forest, which was planted in the 1950s, actually has three names. The first name, Kula, is after the Arab village of Quleh which once existed in the western section of the forest. It was deserted during the 1948 War of Independence and the ruins of crumbled houses and terraces now lie among the trees. The forest is also know as the Koah Forest or Forest of the Kaf Het. In gematria (a Jewish form of numerology in which the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are substituted with corresponding numbers) Koah is 28. 28 soldiers from the Alexandroni brigade died in a battle on the 15th July 1948, when Jordanian forces with tanks returned to the conquered Quleh village and killed 28 Jewish soldiers. The village returned to Israeli control on the 18th July. The name Koah commemorates the soldiers. Finally, it is also known at the Elad Forest since it is located by the city of Elad, which was established in 1990.

After exploring the area of the forest near the Egrof Varomach memorial, we crossed the road and parked near the Alexandroni memorial, above. At the memorial we found a short description of the battle that occurred during the War of Independence, when the IDF and Arab Legion forces fought over the village. A monument with the names of the fallen engraved on it is located on top of a hill and, if you look down below, you can see the remains of trenches the fighters used during the battles.

* This post has been shared on Little Things Thursday, Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Tuesday's Treasures, Pictorial Tuesday and My Corner of the World.

Khan Sha'ar Hagai

We visited Khan Sha'ar HaGai during the Passover holidays. The khan, or caravanserai, was one of the way stations built by the Turks at the end of the 19th century to provide accommodation for pilgrims travelling from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The building stands close to the side of the Tel Aviv to Jerusalem highway. In 1869, the year of the inauguration of the Suez Canal, part of the road adjacent to the site was paved to allow access for carriages and carts. When the structure itself was built in 1873 it included a ground floor with stables, a bakery, a vaulted courtyard and an orchard, and served as a roadside hostelry where travellers could rest and recover before continuing their journey.

The khan has recently been renovated and opened as a heritage centre telling the story of the brave Palmach fighters, commanded by Yitzhak Rabin, who broke through to besieged Jerusalem during Israel's War of Independence.

The Jaffa-Jerusalem road near the Bab al-Wad caravanserai, 1917.

Photo credit: Imperial War Museum archive

Sha'ar HaGai, which translates into English as "the Gateway to the Valley", is also known by its Arabic name "Bab al-Wad". It is at the point on the Tel Aviv to Jerusalem highway where the road begins to ascend through a deep valley flanked by steep rocky slopes. Thanks to these characteristics, during the Arab uprising of 1936-39, the Arabs first realised the potential of this narrow part of the road for ambushes. In the War of Independence they began blocking the road there with the goal of preventing any supplies from reaching Jerusalem, including food, water and medicine. A decision was made among the Palmach commanders to gain control of the area to prevent these attacks. They organised convoys accompanied by armoured cars to force a way through to Jerusalem. The "armour" consisted of a thin sandwich layer of tin sheeting and plywood that was not effective against heavier weapons. Many of these vehicles were destroyed by fighting at Bab al-Wad (Sha'ar HaGai) and to this day they have been left at the side of the road as a monument to the bravery of the men and women who saved Jerusalem from certain starvation.

Eventually the Burma Road was cut through the mountains to bypass the Arab held areas and break the siege. The road was in use during the first, crucial part of Israel's War of Independence, being replaced after just six months by a longer but safer detour route. 

The Palmach fighters 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 1967, during the Six-Day War, it was captured by Israel and the main Tel Aviv to Jerusalem highway was constructed once again.

The road to Jerusalem at Bab al-Wad seen from Arab Legion positions at Latrun, 1948.

This image is now in the public domain because its term of copyright has expired in Israel.

A bulldozer tows a truck on the "Burma Road" to Jerusalem, June 1948.

Photo credit: photographer Hans Pinn

The new heritage centre, which is managed by Israel's Nature and Parks Authority, reveals the legacy of the battles and the story of the Palmach fighters and some civilians who broke through to besieged Jerusalem. The story is told through five interactive stations, including an opening presentation and video of fighters' testimonies, a road station, a wireless station, a supply station, a station that simulates an armoured vehicle on the way to Jerusalem during the war and a final exhibition.

A song was written to honour and commemorate the bravery of those who died, and those who risked their lives to save the city of Jerusalem. Palmach member and Israeli poet Haim Gouri channelled the pain he felt upon seeing the wreckage of the convoys on the road to Jerusalem into writing "Bab el-Wad." His tribute to the fallen in the battle for the road to Jerusalem became one of the most famous songs of the Israeli War of Independence.

Here I'm passing by. I stand beside the rock,
A black asphalt highway, mountain ridges, stones.
Evening darkens slowly and a sea breeze blows.
Over Beit Mahsir, the first starlight glows.

Bab al-Wad,
Remember our names for all time.
Where convoys to the city broke through
Our dead lie sprawled by the roadside.
The iron skeleton, like my comrade, is mute.

Here tar and lead baked in the sun
Here nights passed with fire and blades
Here grief and glory dwell side by side
A scorched armoured car and unknown men’s names.

Bab al-Wad...

And here I walk by, making no sound
And I remember them all, remember each one.
Here together we fought on cliffs and harsh ground
Here as one family, each to each bound.

Bab al-Wad...

A spring day will come and cyclamens bloom
Anemones redden the hilltop and slope.
You who will walk here, on the path that we trod
Never forget us - we are Bab al-Wad.

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** This post has been shared on The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Our World Tuesday, Tuesday's Treasures and My Corner of the World.