The Battle of Mishmar HaMek was one of the fiercest conflicts of the First Arab-Israeli War, known as Israel's War of Independence. At the beginning of April 1948, about 1,000 Arabs of the Arab Liberation Army under Fawzi al-Kawji launched an attack on the Jewish kibbutz there.
The kibbutz was built at a strategic point controlling the Jenin - Haifas road, near the village of the same name. The Kibbutz was defended by 170 Jews who were reinforced by two companies of the Jewish Palmach militia (elites of the Haganah militia) raising the number of defenders to about 300. However, the Arabs, in addition to their 3:1 numerical superiority, also had seven cannons provided to them by the Syrian army.
The Jews, at first, had only one machine gun and not even a sufficient number of rifles for all the men. The Arabs began shelling the kibbutz and continued for five days, firing from a distance of only 800m.
On April 4, certain that the defenders had been annihilated, the Arabs launched an attack. However, the night before, a company of the Haganah (Jewish militia) had managed to reinforce the defenders, which was the pillar of the defense... The Arab attack was repulsed.
The next day the Arabs repeated the bombardment but did not dare to attack again. In general, the attitude of the Arabs was passive and timid, giving the Jews time to act. Thus a Jewish order began to form at a distance of 5 km from the kibbutz.
At the same time, the Arabs also strengthened, of course, but the opportunity to occupy the kibbutz was quickly lost. On April 7, the British proposed a 24-hour truce. The Arabs accepted the truce while asking the Jews to surrender their weapons...
Of course the latter did not respond, but that same night, taking advantage of the truce, the women and children fled the kibbutz. In the meantime they had decided to counterattack with Haganah forces. The attack was launched on the night of 8-9 April and was successful and a quarter of the village was captured and blown up.
The Arab residents had already left. Then the Jews blew up the other houses as well. Fierce street battles followed, but by April 10 the forces of the Haganah had prevailed and blew up the rest of the houses in the village so that they could not become strongholds for the Arabs.
The Jews continued the attack and until April 12 two other villages. The 230 Arab residents in one of them were allowed to leave. The other had already been evacuated. Meanwhile al-Kawji's forces were in danger of being encircled. On the night of April 12-13, the Jews occupied two more villages. The Arab soldiers retreated. The Jews destroyed the villages they occupied. By May 12, they had captured five more villages, clearing the area.
Arab fighters.
Select Jewish section.
Jewish defenders in the kibbutz. One is carrying a shotgun.