In November 1934, Hachsharat HaYishuv (the then Palestine Land Development Company, which worked to purchasing land, to train Jews in agricultural pursuits, and to establish Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine) was awarded the “Hula concession” by the Mandatory government. The concession was originally granted by the Ottoman government to a French firm to drain the marsh, but it sold it to Lebanese businessmen. Now the Hachsharat HaYishuv drew up plans to drain and irrigate the valley.
Nahum Horowitz, the director of the concession, also demanded the purchase of the area between the lake and the border with Syria to ensure unmolested control over the area. Between 1937 and 1939, the Jewish National Fund acquired some 1,300 hectares of farming and grazing land there from the Arab village of Al-Dardara (الدردارة), or Khirbet Al-Draigat. The Arab village houses were built of mud, a few from stone. They grew cereals, vegetables, citrus fruits, figs and olives.
In the winter of 1942, the Jewish National Fund proposed to the members of kibbutz Hulata― a gar'in of HaMahanot HaOlim youth group members―that they cultivate these lands. The kibbutzniks agreed and built a basalt tower for security, and a pier for boats. They cultivated areas for a vegetable garden and for fodder, constructed a barn, and kept a flock of sheep and an apiary. For the settlers who would remain on the site, they established tents for living quarters and a kitchen hut, and surrounded the settlement with a stone wall. In the summer of 1943, the kibbutz decided to build its permanent home to the west of the lake, and south of Dardara, but they retained the land at Dardara until another gar’in was found to settle there.
Dardara was an important place in the Aliyah Bet, the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews, most of whom were refugees escaping from Nazi Germany, and later Holocaust survivors, to Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948, in violation of the restrictions laid out in the British White Paper of 1939. Hundreds of children and adults arrived there at night from Syria, and were taken by the Palmach by boat to Hulata and from there dispersed throughout Palestine.
In 1946, it was agreed that a gar’in of HaNoar HaOved from kibbutz Eyal, near Kfar Saba in the Sharon―comprising the first training of immigrants in the Palmach, together with immigrants from Bulgaria who received their training at kibbutz Gvat, near Migdal HaEmek in the Jezreel Valley―would settle at Dardara. In July 1947, the Hulata members transferred Dardara to the Eyal members. At this time The B’not Yaakov Bridge was blown up by the Haganah and as a result the police station at the bridge was closed, and the overland routes to Dardara were cut off.
The settlers at Dardara were well aware of their situation as an isolated, sparsely populated settlement, next to the Syrian border, whose connection with the home front was not secure. Because of this, they fortified themselves to the best of their ability against the possibility of attack. The fortifications included deep communication channels and bunkers. Mines were laid in the lanes near the kibbutz entrances, and wireless communication arrangements were established to maintain contact with the home front. The occupation of Mishmar HaYarden by the Syrian army, on 10 June 1948, increased Dardara’s isolation, and the use of boats on the Hula lake was exposed to enemy fire.
On 9 July 1948, the IDF launched Operation Brosh, to destroy the Syrian bridgehead around Mishmar HaYarden. As part of this offensive, a company of the twenty-third battalion crossed lake Hula to Dardara, surprising the Syrians―who were estimated to be holding a three-mile-deep enclave west of the Jordan, about six miles from north to south, with more than three thousand troops, artillery and twelve aeroplanes―and only encountering light resistance. During that night they took a hill overlooking Dardara and Khirbet Jalbina, a tiny Bedouin village at the mouth of the Jilabun stream, just across the frontier inside Syria.
On 11 July 1948, a Syrian battalion attacked Dardara with heavy guns. In addition, two Syrian planes bombed the settlement, destroying it completely. A platoon of the Carmeli Brigade arrived at the settlement and, in a difficult battle that lasted an entire day, repulsed the attack together with members of the kibbutz, flushing out a nearby stronghold. There were three deaths, including one Carmeli soldier, and 12 wounded. About 30 Syrians were killed, although the Syrians claimed eight soldiers were killed.
It is claimed that the Arab village of Dardara had a population of 360 in 1948 and was ethnically cleansed in 1948, but I cannot find any sources to confirm this. Even the Arab historian, Walid al-Khalidi, admits that it is not known when the Arab village was occupied and its inhabitants dispersed.
In the armistice agreement with Syria, Dardara remained a demilitarized zone within the State of Israel. In practice, the Syrian army did not respect the borders, which exacerbated its situation as a remote border settlement. Limited land area made the establishment of a proper settlement impossible, and gar’in Eyal left Dardara in 1949 to establish kibbutz Eyal near Qalqilya.
Left and right: further memorials to the three fallen soldiers of 1948; centre: remains of a bunker
In October 1949, a group of HaGovrim youth arrived―the name means ‘those who overcome’―living at Dardara for a few months before moving to establish kibbutz HaGovarim (later renamed Gadot) to the south. They found a flat, narrow strip of land, along the lake’s sure, which the 1948 armistice agreement had put under the control of the UN. Being demilitarised, all defensive constructions had been demolished, and the youth felt like sitting sucks, exposed and overlooked by Syrian guns in bunkers on the heights above them. There were a few dilapidated wooden shacks for barracks, around the three-storey stone tower built by the Hulata gar’in. Without it the youth would have been completely exposed, but of course the Syrians were pressing the UN for it to be demolished. Consequently the UN was constantly sending inspection teams which interfered with the work of the HaGovrim youth. With no and to speak of associated with what was by then a mere outpost, they relied on the lake for income, together with piece work for other kibbutzim and a grant for being a border outpost; life was not easy. There was no electricity and the kitchen and stores were primitive and infested with mice. One of the youth, ‘Renate’, wrote about her experiences in From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country: “Our life here [in Dardara] is carefree and wonderful. We run our little world with no interference, but this doesn’t last. After a little over a year, we are moved to our permanent border kibbutz-settlement. Once we leave Dardara, it ceases to exist.” However HaGovrim did continue to send guard groups to the site weekly until April 1951.
In October 1952 a group from Nahal―the pioneer youth fighters―came to Dardara renaming the place Ashmura. The name comes from the phrase, B’ashmurot egeh-bach (בְּ֜אַשְׁמֻר֗וֹת אֶהְגֶּה־בָּֽךְ), ‘in the watches I meditate about You,’ from Psalm 63:7. Due to the shrinkage of the lake resulting from the drainage work, it was impossible to reach the place by boat, so the IDF built a floating bridge on barrels and, a year later, a stone embankment. The Bailey bridge then built over the lake was called Gesher HaChamisha ('the Bridge of the Five') in memory of five soldiers who were killed there in 1952 during the evacuation of mines, in preparation for the enlargement of the settlement. The bridge was later demolished, and a permanent bridge built further north, near Yesod. Along its sides are memorial plaques to the five.
On 26 February 1953, members of Dardara were fired on from Syrian positions. In March 1954, the Nahal left the Ashmura outpost and the site became an IDF outpost. In response to agricultural works carried out by Israel inside the demilitarized area near the border, the Syrians shelled the Ashmura outpost, and the adjacent farm, Pardes Huri, in 1958. Buildings were damaged and two policemen injured. Israel did not retaliate and, at the request of the United Nations observers, the works in the area were minimalized and a small team of laborers was set to work in the fields on armoured tractors, under guard from Israel Border Police officers. Archive film of the aftermath can be seen here.
On 6 June 1967, the second day of the Six Day War, the Syrians attacked the IDF outpost under covering fire from the heights above. IDF forces prevented the Syrians from taking over the outpost and, on the morning of 9 June, during the Israeli assault on the Golan Heights, the Third Armoured Brigade (Alexandroni) from Deirdre made a breach from Dardara as a diversionary tactic, during which Tel Hai, the eastern area of Dardara, and Jalbina were conquered. Twenty-two Israeli soldiers fell that day.
Dardara―which had been the only Jewish settlement on the eastern side of Lake Hula―was deserted but, during the Yom Kippur War, the stone wall and tower were demolished for fear they would be used by the Syrians.
The ‘Shield of Remembrance’ award for localities that participated in the War of Independence was awarded to kibbutz Dardara by the Minister of Defence, Moshe Arens, in 1984.
In 1998, with the help of the Eyal Veterans Association, a parking lot and a memorial site were established on the site by the JNF. In a beautiful eucalyptus grove where a small brook babbles beside picnic tables and a wealth of riverbank vegetation, there are signs (in Hebrew) with archive photos, telling the story of the place, leading to a monument to the three members of Eyal who fell there during the War of Independence: Asher Fredo, Moshe Rahamim and David Schwartz―may their memory be for a blessing!
Slideshow of the site today (17 October 2021):
Comments