Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

From March 5 to March 10, 1949, Operation Uvda מבצע עובדה was the last campaign of TzaHaL IDF during the war.
The objective was to capture the southern Negev desert, claimed by the Kingdom of Jordan to be under Jordanian control in the armistice talks of 1949.
Uvda עובדה, which means Fact, in Hebrew, refers to the operation's objective to establish de facto Israeli sovereignty over the southern Negev, designated as part of the Jewish State in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, rather than actually conquer it.
The operation included the Negev, Golani and Alexandroni brigades, as well as a number of smaller units.

In January, 1949, a small unit was dispatched to reconnoiter the southern Negev.
their mission was to map the region (the best available map of the time was a GSGS map scaled 1:250,000).
They were reinforced by reconnaissance aircraft, and they made use of aerial photography stereoscopic imaging.
The Jeep Company and the scouts prepared the intelligence reports.
The unit moved in two parts: one, through the center of the Negev, and ther other, through the Arava.

On March 5, 1949, (4 Adar 5709), the Negev Brigade set out from Beersheva to the Ramon Crater, through Bir 'Asluj. going through the middle of the Negev, and looking for landing space for planes to bring in the 7th Infantry Battalion of the Negev Brigade.
The Mobile 9th Battalion went down in small convoys following the jeeps, leading the way.
The Golani Brigade simultaneously set out from Mamshit to Ein Husub.
The Golani Brigade's 19th Mobile Battalion descended Maaleh Akrabim, and continued through the Arava, running parallel to the Jordanian border and all the way down to Um Rashrash.
On March 6, 1940, the 7th Brigade reinforcements from the Gahal platoon landed at Sdeh Avraham. on a landing strip quickly prepared for the C-47 Dakotas and C-45 Commandos aircraft, carrying supplies and fuel vital to the operation.

On March 7, 1949, the Golani Brigade conquered Ein Harouf.
The Alexandroni Brigade moved from Beersheva, via Mamshit, towards Sdom, and from there, prepared to make an amphibious landing near Ein Gedi on the Dead Sea.

On March 8, 1949, the Golani Brigade took al-Ghamr, forcing the defending Jordanian troops to withdraw.
The Negev Brigade moved towards Umm Rashrash through the Valley of Fingers.
At night, the Alexandroni Brigade set sail from Sdom, and landed at Ein Gedi before dawn.
The Jeep Company crossed the Palestine-Egypt border, and, on a dirt track that the British Army used to travel from the Suez Canal, through Um-Rashrash, to their bases in Akaba and Amman, headed toward the Egyptian border post of Taba.

On March 8–9, 1949, the Alexandroni Brigade split into three groups:
One group captured Ein Gedi.
The southern group captured Masada.
The Negev Brigade stayed at the Valley of Fingers for two days, looking for a route to Ras al-Naqb.
On March 9, the Golani Brigade captured Gharandal and continued Ein Ghidyan (now Yotvata).

On the morning of March 10, 1949, aerial reconnaissance discovered that the police station at Ras al-Naqb was abandoned, and the Negev Brigade set out towards Umm Rashrash via Ras al-Naqb.
Before taking Um-Rashrash, some of the infantry descended the mountains to the Arava, on the Jordan border, 20 kilometers north of Um-Rashrash. where they erected a defense position, with barbed wire across the road and signs indicating there were mines, to deter the Jordanians.
At March 10, 15:00AM, the Negev Brigade reached the abandoned police station at Umm Rashrash (now Eilat), and the Golani Brigade arrived two hours later.
On March 10, 16:00AM, the raising of the hand-drawn Israeli flag, as the Ink Flag, at the police station at Umm Rashrash, is considered to have ended the war.
By taking Um-Rashrash, the connecting road between TransJordan and Egypt, which the British had used, was cut off.