Army of the holy war
As an army of holy war ( Arabic جيش الجهاد المقدس, DMG Ǧaiš al-Ǧihād al-Muqaddas ) is the name given to a paramilitary formation of the Palestinians in the Palestinian War of 1948.
The origins of the name can be traced back to the Arab uprising in 1936.
At the beginning of the hostilities between the Yishuv and the Palestinians in 1947, the "Army of the Holy War" was re-established as a loose association of Palestinian militias. The supreme command was Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini , who led the units around and in Jerusalem . From January to March 1948 he ordered several car bomb attacks on Jewish targets. The campaign hit the newspaper Palestine Post (3 dead), the popular Ben-Jehuda-Strasse shopping street (46 dead) and the headquarters of the Jewish Agency (13 dead). The US consulate in Jerusalem was also badly damaged. Fawzi al-Kutub, trained in Germany during the Second World War, served as the bomb expert . Al-Husaini fell in the unsuccessful attempt to recapture Castel , which had recently fallen into Israeli hands and which controlled the Israeli supply routes to Jerusalem. His death had a disastrous impact on the morale of his troops.
A second association, under Hasan Salama, blocked access to the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem near Lydda .
The militias were beaten and wiped out by the Hagana as part of Operation Nachshon .
Individual evidence
- ^ Benny Morris: 1948 - The First Arab Israeli War. New Haven, 2008, pp. 107f
- ↑ Ulrich Sahm: Fawzi al Kutub: The darkest figure in German-Jewish-Israeli-Palestinian history , Hagalil from August 1, 2011
- ^ Benny Morris : 1948 - A History of the First Arab-Israeli War; New Haven, 2008; P. 89, p. 107