Sha'ar HaGai

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Sha'ar HaGai or Bab El-Wad (Hebrew: שער הגיא‎ or Hebrew: באב אל-ואד‎, Arabic: باب الواد‎ or Arabic: باب الوادي‎ lit. Gate of the Valley) is a point on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, 23 km from Jerusalem, where the road begins to ascend into a gorge between cliffs.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, this area saw fierce fighting between Arab forces and Jewish convoys on the way to blockaded Jerusalem. According to J. Bowyer Bell "“On April 14 (1948) the Arabs ambushed a large convoy on the way to the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, killing seventy-seven doctors, nurses and teachers. On April 20, the Arabs recaptured the heights around Sha'ar HaGai, closing the Tel Aviv road.”^[1] The Palmach 10th (Harel) brigade (under the command of Lt. Col. Yitzhak Rabin, future prime minister of Israel) managed to capture the area, but the rest of the Jerusalem road remained under Arab control. In order to bypass the road, the so-called "Burma Road" was constructed (named after the World War II road into China). After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when the Latrun area was captured, the main Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem highway was once again constructed through Sha'ar HaGai.

To this day, rusted armored cars that were destroyed during the 1948 war line the route to commemorate the war. There is also the Mahal Memorial Monument, which commemorates the 119 Jewish fighters that died there.^[2]

[edit] Song

The battles of Sha'ar HaGai were commemorated by a Hebrew song, Bab al-Wad, with words by Haim Gouri and music by Shmuel Farshko. The song has been performed by numerous famous Israeli singers, such as Yafa Yarkoni, Shoshana Damari and Shlomo Gronich.