Ramallah: In June 1967 Major-General Wassef Erekat was pulled from his ranger training course in the Jordanian city of Zarqa and ordered to urgently join his battalion stationed near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
“We had never received such an alert call before so we suspected there was going to be a war,” the 71-year-old told Gulf News.
Erekat, from the Abu DIs village near Jerusalem was only a teenager when he was in the army. Gulf News Archives
On June 5, at precisely 10:00am Erekat and his colleagues at the artillery battery were asked to bomb Israeli targets in Marj Bin Amer. With a range up to 27 kilometres, the artillery was aimed at the Naehlaiel airport near Afula, south of Nazareth.
“It was a hot summer day but we didn’t feel the heat because we were so busy shelling targets,” he said. The shelling continued into the night but at around 6am his battalion was ordered back to their military camp in Zababdeh, 500 metres away, and start burning all documents.
Rumours had been spreading that Iraq planned to dispatch reinforcements to rescue the Arab forces.
“Israeli tanks rolled into our base and the cook opened the gate for them thinking they were Iraqi forces,” Erekat said.
“It was the first time any of us saw an Israeli soldier up close. We hid behind some haystacks and plotted our escape,” he said.
“Then we got the orders to retreat. I remember it so vividly. Officer Azam Haddad read the radio communication telegram to the battalion,” he recalled. “It simply said ‘all guns withdraw’”.
While some members of the battalion retreated to Jordan, many others decided to stay back.
Erekat planned to return to his village of Abu Dis in Jerusalem to defend it.
“I was young, just 19, and fearless,” he said. “Many of us refused to accept defeat and wanted to get the opportunity to confront the enemy face-to-face.”
With only a carbine rifle in hand he began his long journey on foot passing through various villages.
On the way, an old woman offered Erekat and his comrades freshly-baked bread and civilian clothing.
Erekat, 71, became a career PLO commander spending time in Lebanon and Syria. He now lives in Ramallah with his children and grandchildren. Gulf News Archives
“I told her ‘just bread, auntie’ as my honour stood in the way of taking off my uniform,” he said.
On his journey he passed by many Palestinian soldiers and civilians who were organising small groups to go back to attack Israeli forces.
“At that point there was no army but pockets of Palestinians who wanted to resist Israel,” Erekat said.
But before he made it to his village, he learnt that Israeli forces had already seized it along with every major Palestinian city in the West Bank.
“There was nothing left to defend at the point and all the battalions were ordered back to Zarqa,” he said.
He recalled the long journey on foot with great detail.
The Israeli air force had wiped out all of the Arab air forces giving them supremacy on the battlefield.
“I passed by burnt-out Jordanian tanks, with dead soldiers in them,” he said. “We were ordered to document the human and material losses.”
“The mood was sombre and the future was uncertain,” he said.
The next nine months saw small Palestinian guerrilla groups resisting Israeli occupation. Meanwhile, Erekat was sent to the United States for military training.
He came back the following year and participated in the Al Karameh Battle against Israeli forces in March 1968.
“I had a deep desire for revenge. I channelled all my resentment from losing the 1967 war into the Al Karameh Battle,” Erekat said.
Palestinian guerrilla groups along with the Jordanian army worked together and were able to inflict heavy losses on the Israeli forces during the 16-hour battle.
“They called for a ceasefire and we were able to recover some respect,” he said.
In 1970, Erekat left the Jordanian Armed Forces and joined the Palestinian resistance group Fatah.
He moved to Syria, a few months following his marriage, where he participated in the establishment of an artillery battalion.
Then in 1976, he moved to Lebanon where he was tasked to command the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) artillery unit that defended the Tel Zater refugee camp.
Erekat led the joint Lebanese-Palestinian artillery forces in southern Lebanon from 1977-1982 in Tefhter and Zahrani, and returned to Syria to command PLO artillery there until 1983.
In 1995, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat asked him to be Deputy Interior Minister in the Jenin and Jerusalem district of the Occupied West Bank.
Looking back at the war 50 years later, Erekat believes that Arab forces lost because of a shortage of real-time intelligence as well as sloppy coordination between the Arab armies.
The head of the joint-Arab command, Egyptian officer Abdul Muneim Riyad, was heavily blamed by observers at the time for the collective failure of the Arab armies.
“He gave contradicting orders to the armies, first to withdraw and then to return,” he recalled.
Communication was so badly disconnected that brigades were fighting separately and not coordinating their efforts, he explained.
The Arabs also fell victim to Israel’s psychological warfare, he said.
“Horrific rumours were spread which led Arabs to withdraw from areas before Israeli forces even arrived,” he said, giving Syria’s Golan Heights as an example.
Erekat now lives in Ramallah’s Tira neighbourhood and shares his life stories with his grandchildren.
He stays in touch with several of his colleagues from his time in the Jordanian army and keeps photos from the war on his mobile phone.
“Although Israel won the ’67 war, they have not achieved any clear political objective,” he said.
Since then, Palestinians have continuously resisted occupation, both peacefully and through violence, and Israel’s occupation of pre-67 lands has not been recognised by a single country in the United Nations, not even the United States, its chief backer.
“As long as there are Palestinians, there will be resistance,” Erekat said.
Mohammed Najib is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah
