ABSTRACT
In the countryside Arabs left their villages, crept toward their local kibbutzim, and fired into them. In the towns the Arab suqs were crowded with men looking for new cartridges. On December 10, ten Jews were killed and four wounded when their convoy was ambushed between kilos fourteen and fifteen on the Jerusalem-Hebron road, during an attempt to get through to the Etzion bloc of kibbutzim. On March 24, the Arabs learned from a secret transmitter that a major convoy was on the way. They built a blockade of logs and stones across a narrow section of the gorge; and three-hundred riflmen crouched on the slopes to wait for the long, vulnerable snake of slow-moving armored vehicles to creep into range. Everywhere the Jews had been successful in defense, as the Arab volunteers' crude attacks broke apart before disciplined dug-in fire.
