Operation Kilshon

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On May 14, 1948 Jewish forces from the Haganah and Irgun executed Operation Kilshon (or Kalshon). Its aim was to capture the Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem particularly Talbiyya in central Jerusalem.

At midnight on Friday May 14, the British declared its civil and military authority in Jerusalem to be at an end. In the morning they evacuated the city in two large convoys, one moved north towards Haifa and the other south towards Bethlehem. Due to British complicity, the Zionists managed to obtain a schedule of their withdrawal in advance and could launch the operation almost immediately after it.

1948. Jerusalem, Princess Mary Ave. This area, blocked from traffic by barbed wire, was dubbed "Bevingrad". The building on the right is police HQ.

The Zionist forces quickly managed to capture "Bevingrad" (named after the British Colonial Secretary Ernest Bevin), a compound that formerly had been inhibited by the Russian Orthodox Church but had been rented by the British authorities since the early years of the mandate and used as police headquarters, courthouse and prison. Many members of the Jewish underground had been imprisoned there.

They also captured the Notre Dame Church, the neighbourhoods American Colony, Sheik Jarrah, Talbiyya, German Colony, Bekaa, Talpiot, Greek Colony and through the Zion Gate the Jewish quarter of the Old City.

A large portion of what was captured was to become the Israeli controlled portion of Jerusalem - "West Jerusalem". But some of the heaviest battles of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war was to follow and the Jerusalem frontier was to be redrawn many times.

The name is the Biblical name for the river now known as the Nahr al-Mokattah ('River of Slaughter'). In Scripture this river is mentioned several times, most prominently The Song of Deborah (Judges 5:21).