We headed toward a shanty town on the outskirts of Rafa, headquarters at the gates of the Negev, the great southern desert of Palestine, Rafa itself had boomed in the last few months, and served as an outpost for volunteer fighters, gun-runners, and Arab refugees already fleeing from Palestine. As early as the end of March 1948, Cairo was crowded with wealthy Palestinian refugees, both Moslem and Christian, who had left their homes voluntarily, even though widespread fighting had not yet broken out. By ten o'clock Moustafa and Zaki had located a gun-running truck leaving for Beersheba.

Yallah! We climbed into the truck and rode until we reached the Palestine border. There we were halted by British soldiers. Two tanks stood near by. Beyond was a large British camp. The Green Shirts had now hidden their own guns and insignia, and posed as native Palestinians. The English went through the formality of asking: "Any guns on the truck?" We said: "No," laughing. The soldiers smiled back, took down our license number and, lifting the wooden barrier, let us through. We were in Palestine!

Not far from Beersheba I saw my first Jewish communal settlement, Kibbutz Beit Eshel. With its well-tended orchards and green trees, Beit Eshel rose like an oasis from the bleak, dust-packed Negev desert around it. A kibbutz was always conspicuous by its water tower, silo and modern farm buildings, and contrasted sharply with the squalor of Arab villages.

Moustafa pointed at Beit Eshel with awe. "We have attacked it, but the Jews are well armed. They have built a Maginot Line around their place and fight you from under the ground. They are cowards." Later, I was to see astonishing examples of Jewish ingenuity -- and understand exactly what Moustafa meant. "After May 15 Beit Eshel will be ours. The Egyptian army will make it one with the desert."

"Insh'alla! Insh'alla! With God's help," I said.

Surrounded by Arabs and desert, a lone sentry in the wilderness, I could not imagine how Beit Eshel could ever hold out against massed troops and heavy artillery¹ (¹ But it did. On one occasion the settlement's armory consisted of twelve rifles and two machine-guns. The Egyptian army attacked in battalion strength with heavy artillery, and was repeatedly beaten back.) Inquiring discreetly, I learned that the kibbutz had already taken a toll of attacking Arabs. It was supplied by a daring airlift and sometimes by food and ammunition convoys that boldly ran the gauntlet of Arab soldiers all the way from coastal Tel Aviv, seventy miles across the desert.