A setback, but there are heroes in June 1967

Written by: Wasef Erekat

Everything has two faces, there is a bright side and there is a dark side, just as each one of us has a point of view and there is nothing wrong with that as long as we accept the other point of view even if it focuses on the negative aspects, or puts the knot in the saw as it is said. I beg the reader’s pardon because I always focus on the positive aspects of our lives, as a lot of talk about the negatives destroys societies and people lose their self-confidence.

What prompted me to write this introduction is that most of us are talking about the setback of June 1967 and its negative aspects, and this will not provide lessons for generations. No one denies the defeat of the Arab armies and the victory of Israel, and the Arab negligence cannot be defended, but the defeat should not overshadow the sacrifices of our people who stood firm. On his land and patience in front of all the crimes of the occupation and suffered both, and there are heroes, whether combat soldiers in the field or steadfast civilians and eyewitnesses to the crimes of the occupation, and it is the duty to "expose the crimes of the occupation and honor the heroes who fought and were martyred or wounded in defense of the land and honor, our enemy is coming out We are confronted every day with stories that contain false narratives of criminals who committed the most heinous crimes against our people, claiming that they are heroics and serve their interests, bearing in mind that we have heroes and stories that are much greater than what our enemies boast about and publish on the media. In June, our people triumphed steadily on their land. And when the buses that the occupation equipped to deport him and transport him to the border returned empty, he triumphed when he endured all the pains and torments, and in my narration some of them:

On June 4, 1967, I was an officer with the rank of lieutenant in the 6th Heavy Artillery Battalion of the Jordanian Army Artillery Corps, based in Zarqa and its batteries in the West Bank. April, when we were suddenly asked to stop training and join the field sites following the declaration of the state of emergency, and the battery to which I belong was stationed in the village of Zababdeh in the Jenin governorate to support the infantry brigade Khaled Ibn Al-Walid, we were happy with the news because we will fight our enemy, the Zababdeh arrived at a record speed, I found my colleagues in the battery eagerly preparing for confrontation, and I found that a section of them had two 155 mm cannons that had been moved to the village of Al-Yamoun in order to bombard targets that could not be reached by the Zababdeh cannons. I and he were division commanders and we took turns in tasks, especially the task of monitoring and observing from the heights of Jenin, and colleagues from the battery moved with him: Sergeant Yahya Hassan Al-Maaita from Ader-Al-Karak, and Private Samir Mustafa Al-Qudah from Ibbin-Ajl One, and the first soldier, Ali Aqil Suleiman, from Aima in Tafilah, and the first soldier, Khalifa Mustafa Mohsen, from Hour-Irbid, and the soldier, Amin Salama Al-Momani, from Sakhra-Ajloun, and the first soldier, Salem Suleiman, from Souf-Jerash, and the soldier, Ahmed Najeeb Khalaf Al-Hamouri. From Beit Ras - Irbid, and Corporal Mahmoud Shukri Murshid from Qusra - Nablus

On the morning of the next day, June 5, with the start of the Israeli army's aggression and the fall of Israeli shells on the positions of the Jordanian Arab Army, we began to occupy the targets according to the list prepared for the battle (targets bank), foremost of which were the nearby airports, especially the Megiddo airport, the artillery sites and the axes of the advance of the Israeli tanks. I will not forget those moments The overwhelming joy of the cannon crews and the shout of God is great with every shell launched from the barrels of the cannons towards the hostile targets. The hits were accurate. The Israeli planes intensified their sorties over our positions and began hovering over these positions, forcing the cannons to stop shooting in the presence of the air force and without air cover. Especially after the Israeli air forces bombed the Arab airports, including the Jordanian ones, and we lost the most important weapon of support, and the positions of the forces became all exposed from the air and they were fighting without cover and protection. Despite all this, we were taking advantage of the opportunity of the absence of the Israeli aircraft and bombing the advancing columns of tanks despite the great difference in gear number. ‏

On the 6th and 7th of June, the situation began to deteriorate and turn for the worse, with columns of tanks storming through all axes. It got worse with the martyrdom of the Yamoon artillery commander, First Lieutenant Muhammad Abu al-Foul, while he was moving between locations on his way to Yamoon, where an Israeli tank hit his car and trampled it with its track, killing a man. The Fur and its driver survived the crime, and the Yamoun and Zababdeh cannons continued to bombard the targets according to the drawn plan and according to the developments of the field situation.

The Israeli army used the pattern of bypassing, detouring, and rapid rushing in depth under air support. On June 7, Israeli tanks stormed the artillery site in the village of Al-Yamoun, after heavy and concentrated shelling on the site by enemy artillery and aircraft, which led to the death of some, the wounding of others, and the disabling of one of the cannons. Those who remained alive confronted the enemy tanks with the available and modest capabilities, until they were all martyred. Despite all that, the occupation soldiers fired at them from point blank. ‏

With the storming of the Al-Yamoun site and the arrival of information that they were approaching the village of Al-Zababdeh, we were asked to evacuate the site and take a position in a rear location. Some soldiers impeded their progress and occupied them with shooting to protect the exit of the cannons, and they did, and the cannons managed to escape from their grip. I was assigned to return to the battery command post next to the Knights station, which became a school for the Zababdeh students, in order to destroy official documents and disable everything that the enemy benefits from, and while we were We do this, the Israeli tanks stormed our site and they were carrying the Iraqi flags, I asked my fellow soldiers to retreat to the back as we do not have anti-tank launchers with us, and with the onset of darkness we started moving towards the village of Sir where the new artillery site will be, we were also surprised by the presence of Israeli tanks, and there are no We have a means of communication, and we arrived in the town of Tubas. There was a dignified, elderly woman who was baking in the taboon. She insisted on feeding us from her bread and provided us with whatever food she had. And her generosity renewed our activity, the woman went and brought some civilian clothes and said wear them so that they do not arrest you, we thanked her and asked her to keep the clothes for her owners and we continued walking in our military clothes and our individual weapons, and when I learned that our artillery crossed the river towards the east, I decided with my fellow soldiers that each of us should go on foot He went on foot to his village and contributed to its defense, but we were surprised by the Israeli army's control of most of the roads, so we had to head east and cross the Jordan River, which took us three days. ‏

As for the martyrs of Al-Yamoun, despite the tanks storming the site and the town and continuing the shelling, its good people were able to transfer their bodies to a cave in the village, and later they were transported, honored and buried in the town’s cemetery, and their names were placed on top of their graves. The people of the town tell how they found the wounded officer Abdul Aziz Al-Adwan alive while they were transporting the bodies to the cave, where his body was hot and still beating, and then they treated him and embraced him until he returned to Jordan. ‏

What happened with us in the Jenin axis happened in the other axes, and perhaps even worse and harsher, and this third war led to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai and the Golan, in which the armies were defeated but the people were not defeated. May God have mercy on those who preceded us on the path and glory to the glory makers. ‏