The Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army (Arabic: جيش الجهاد المقدس; Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) was a force of Palestinian Arab irregulars in the 1947-48 Palestinian civil war led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama.^[1] The force has been described as Husayni's "personal" army.^[2]

The Arab League set up the Arab Salvation Army (Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi) as a counter to the Army of the Holy War and as part of its plan to contain the Palestinian Arab leadership and to prevent it from exercising an independent political or military options, although in practice the Arab governments prevented thousands of volunteers from joining either force.^[3]

Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni arrived in the Jerusalem sector in December 1947 and by March 1948 had about 128 men. He established his headquarters at Bir Zeit and started to conduct a blockade of Jerusalem by attacking the Jewish convoys to the city. Hasan Salama, with 950 men of the Jihad and 228 irregulars, took responsibility of the operations in the Lydda and Ramle sectors, at the entry of the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road.^[4][5]

Husayni was killed during hand-to-hand fighting for control of Qastal Hill on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, on 8 April 1948. His forces captured Qastal from the Haganah, which had occupied the village at the start of Operation Nachshon six days earlier with a force of about 100 men.^[6] They retreated to the Jewish settlement of Motza.^[7] Palmach troops recaptured the village on the night of 8–9 April; most of the houses were blown up and the hill became a command post.^[8][9] Husayni's death was a factor in the loss of morale among his forces.^[10]

When the All-Palestine Government was formed on 22 September 1948, during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, it revived the Holy War Army, with the declared aim of "liberating Palestine." However, the Government had no money of its own, and operated only under the supervision of Egypt, and was generally ineffective. On 3 October 1948, Jordan gave an order to the Arab Legion to surround, and forcibly disarm, various units of the Holy War Army.^[11]

Notes

References

• Benveniśtî, Mêrôn (2002). Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press. ISBN 0520234227
• Hourani, Albert Habib, Philip S. Khoury, and Mary C. Wilson.(2005). The Modern Middle East: A Reader. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781860649639
• Khalaf, Issa. (1991). Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration, 1939-1948. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780791407073
• Morris, Benny (2003). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521009677
• Morris, Benny (2008). 1948: A history of the first Arab-Israeli war. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300126969
• Pappé, Ilan. (1994). The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-51. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781850438199
• Ṣāyigh, Yazīd Yūsuf. (1999). Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198296430
• Simon, Reeva S., Philip Mattar, Richard W. Bulliet (1996). Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East 1, A - C. New York: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 9780028960111