Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

On January 15, 1948, following the Arab attack on January 14, 35 Haganah הגנה fighters under command of Danny Mat, made their way on foot from Har Tuv הר טוב‎, near Beit Shemesh בית שמש, to resupply Gush Etzion גוש עציון,
They took a detour around the Palestine Police station, a Tegart fort, to avoid detection by the British, which took them close to a large training base erected by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni عبد القادر الحسيني‎.
At dawn, Arab shepherds from Surif صوريف‎ saw the Haganah הגנה troops, and summoned armed locals, many, members of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni عبد القادر الحسيني‎'s Army of the Holy War جيش الجهاد المقدس against the British and later the Haganah הגנה, to block their way.
The battle lasted all the next day, and the Haganah troops fought until about 16:30PM, when the last of the 35 Lamed Hey מחלקת הל"ה was killed
The Arab attackers mutilated the bodies of the 35 Lamed Hey מחלקת הל"ה.
After no word of the 35 had been received for a long time and wounded Arabs started arriving at Hebron חברון, the British dispatched a platoon of the Royal Sussex Regiment to investigate.
A British soldier took photos of the mutilated bodies of the 35 Lamed Hey מחלקת הל"ה, and left his roll of film to be developed in Jerusalem ירושלים, but never returned to collect it.
Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, it was assumed that the location of the final battle was on the Jordanian side of the armistice line, in 1967, the British police officer who had found the bodies in 1948, and Arab witnesses independently identified a hilltop on the Israeli side of the line.

On May 12, 1948, local Arabs and troops of the Arab Legion الجيش العربي attacked Gush Etzion גוש עציון.
They fought for three days, and 30 defenders were killed.
On Friday, May 14, 1948, the remaining defenders could no longer hold out, and they surrendered.
The Arab attackers murdered 127 men and women, whose bodies lay in the fields for a year-and-a-half, until Transjordan إمارة شرق الأردن allowed Israel to retrieve the corpses and bury them at Mount Herzl הר הרצל‎.
The surviving defenders were transported to a aken prison in Transjordan إمارة شرق الأردن.
During five and a half months of fighting, the four Gush Eztion גוש עציון kibbutzim were destroyed, and two hundred and forty settlers, Haganah הגנה and Palmach פלמ"ח fighters were killed.