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Updated: June 26, 2025
That hill-top at this period had to submit to a thunderous bombardment, and the Mosque of Nebi Samwil became a battered shell. Here are supposed to lie the remains of the Prophet Samuel. The tradition may or may not be well founded, but at any rate Mahomedans and Christians alike have held the place in veneration for centuries.
The route was changed and we kept close under the north-western slopes of the ridge. The worst part of the day was the moving across the open valley to the shelter of the Nebi Samwil ridge. The enemy had guns at Beitunia and at Lifta and behind El Jib, and he did not spare his gunners that day. Fortunately for us he used mostly percussion shrapnel and his percentage of duds was high.
General Maclean's brigade advanced from Biddu along the side of a ridge and up the exposed steep slope of Nebi Samwil, not all of which, in the only direction he could select for an advance, was terraced, as it was on the Turks' side.
Britain is rebuilding what the Turks destroyed, and there will soon arise on Nebi Samwil a new mosque to show Mahomedans that tolerance and freedom abide under our flag. When the 75th Division were making the attack on Nebi Samwil the 52nd Division put all the men they could spare on to the task of making roads. To be out of the firing line did not mean rest.
The 60th and 74th Divisions had already arrived in the fighting zone and were occupying positions in the line, the 60th on the right, about Kushel, and the 74th about Neby Samwil. On December 4th, the 53rd Division commenced their march from Beersheba up the Hebron-Jerusalem Road. No opposition was met, and, by the evening of the 6th, the head of this column was ten miles north of Hebron.
He was all the time confronted by heavy artillery and rifle fire, and, though supported by guns firing at long range from the neighbourhood of Enab, he could not make Nebi Samwil in daylight. Round the top of the hill the Turk had dug deeply into the stony earth. He knew the value of that hill.
Besides, he would inevitably be disappointed, unless his first glimpse of the Holy City was from the summit of Nebi Samwil or, coming out of the Jordan Valley on a moonlit night, he saw the shimmering radiance of the Mosque of Omar at the top of Mount Moriah. But the Rest Camp at Enab was strictly limited both in size and scope.
Kustul stands out the next boldest feature to Nebi Samwil, and from it, when the atmosphere is clear, the red-tiled roofs of houses in the suburbs of Jerusalem are plainly visible. A dozen villages clinging like limpets to steep hillsides are before you, and away on your right front the tall spires of Christian churches at Ain Karim tell you you are approaching the Holy Sites.
Existing roads and tracks were improved and new ones constructed to enable heavy and field artillery to be placed in position and ammunition and supplies brought up. The water supply was also developed. By December 4th all reliefs were complete." A line was then held from Kushel, about 5 miles to the west of Jerusalem, along the ridge that runs north-east some 3 or 4 miles to Neby Samwil.
The intention had been to surround Jerusalem with a cordon of British sentries; an order, accordingly, was published that any British soldier found within 5 miles of Jerusalem would be liable to be shot. Our unfortunate British soldiers fighting on Neby Samwil, which was within the prescribed distance, readily endorsed that sentiment, though scarcely in the sense implied by the authorities.
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