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Updated: June 14, 2025
He pointed to the hill of Ali Muntar, the most prominent feature in the enemy's system, and said that from the Turks' observation post on that eminence every movement of the labourers could be seen, and the men were often forced by gunfire to the refuge of the trenches.
Northwards stretched fields turning brown under the hot sun, with here and there a flicker of white in a patch of dark green marking the presence of a native dwelling; westwards was Ali Muntar thrusting its sombre height through fringes of cactus; Gaza tucked away behind, almost hidden in foliage; and beyond, the shining waters of the Mediterranean.
Four patrols were pushed forward and found the ground clear to the bottom of the ridge, and as soon as the artillery had finished they scaled the cliffs and looked over the top into open country stretching away to Ali el Muntar. The patrols under Lieut. A.R. MacEwen, who subsequently received the M.C., and Lieut.
After securing Ali Muntar the 75th Division advanced over Fryer's Hill to Australia Hill, so that they held the whole ridge running north and south to the eastward of Gaza. The enemy still held to his positions to the right of his centre, and from the Atawineh Redoubt, Tank Redoubt, and Beer trenches there was considerable shelling of Gaza and the Ali Muntar ridge throughout the day.
There was a dense fog on the morning of the 26th, and, as the troops were moving through standing crops, finding the way was none too easy. However, the Wadi Ghuzzeh was crossed, and the high ground at Mansura Ridge was secured. From there, an attack was delivered across the open against Ali Muntar and Gaza.
The Turkish action in fortifying Atawina Ridge, east of Gaza, had narrowed the front by many miles, and so well were the defences elsewhere arranged that unless Ali Muntar itself, which dominated them all, were taken it was impossible to hold on to any one ridge even if it were captured.
During the night of the 26th Turkish reinforcements, now unopposed, poured into Gaza from all over the country. Next day the Turks counter-attacked Ali Muntar in great strength, and though our infantry, who had suffered and were suffering great privations from want of water, put up a magnificent resistance, they were at length driven from the positions gained at such heavy cost.
There was no necessity, therefore, for an assault on Ali Muntar; its deserted slopes were occupied without opposition the next day. It thus remained unconquered to the end, and no one begrudged the barren victory, for many thousands of British lives were saved in consequence. By the time Gaza was occupied by our troops, the remaining Turkish defences except Atawina had fallen into our hands.
The Turks did not oppose us at Muntar the spot where the Jews released the Scapegoat but there was a short contest for Ibrahim, and a longer fight lasting till the afternoon for an entrenched position a mile north of it; Ras et Tawil was ours by nine in the morning. Tawil overlooks a track which has been trodden from time immemorial.
It was also the last occasion on which the Baby Tanks were used, for in the subsequent fighting amongst the Judæan hills the country was too rough even for the larger specimens successfully to have negotiated. Of the important defences in the immediate neighbourhood of Gaza, only grim old Ali Muntar now remained unconquered, and still reared a defiant head above his humbler satellites.
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