The Jordanians dig in
King Hussein’s forces battle to repel Israel’s lightning advance
By 6 June the Egyptian army was in full flight. Egyptian soldiers left their weapons and up to 10,000 Egyptians died in the retreat, from thirst and combat. In the chaos, Egyptian artillery fired on its own men. Meanwhile, Egyptian media outlets absurdly told the Egyptian people that their army had “wiped out” enemy attacks and was penetrating Israel.
Egyptian soldiers retreated wholesale, instead of digging in and blunting enemy air power by fighting at night. Who exactly ordered that retreat divided opinion for years. Nasser’s supporters said that it was Amer. Both Nasser and Amer blamed the fiasco on a US– UK intervention in support of Israel, or on faulty weapons supplied by the Soviets. A political campaign against the US across the Arab world ensued and mobs attacked US facilities. In truth, the defeat was down to Nasser’s poor diplomacy, his weak army and Israeli pre- emptive aggression.
Meanwhile, momentous events were unfolding on
Israel’s eastern front, where battle was raging in Jerusalem, which was then divided between Israeli and Jordanian control.
Israeli paratroopers fighting as infantry encircled the walled old city – home to the Muslim Haram al-Sharif (noble sanctuary, Dome of the Rock, or ‘Temple Mount’) and Jewish Western Wall holy sites – but did not enter. At the same time, paratroopers assaulted Jordanian-held bunkers on ‘Ammunition Hill’ just north of the old city. The battle started at 1.25am as Israeli soldiers moved to their attack positions. The Jordanians fought like lions. They killed and wounded scores of Israelis, shouting “Allah Akbar” (“God is great”) as they fought.
By 4.30am, the Israelis had found a way into the enemy positions, but their Sherman tanks could not depress their guns to fire into the Jordanian lines. Nor could the paratroopers easily get through the narrow trenches with their wide backpacks. But Jordanian resistance gradually crumbled. One of the Jordanian officers on Ammunition Hill radioed out “ammunition is running low. You will no longer hear from me, but I hope you will hear about me and my men.”
In the end, 71 Jordanians and 53 Israelis died on Ammunition Hill and the postwar Israeli-built memorial at that place honours the fallen on both sides. Jordanian troops did not cut and run, but they gave way to Israeli firepower and momentum. To his troops, Hussein in a dispatch said: “Kill the enemy wherever you find them with your arms, hands, nails and teeth.”