Battle of Anabta

The battle of Anabta occurred on June 21, 1936, when Palestinian Arab militants attacked a convoy of civilian buses escorted by British soldiers in Mandatory Palestine, near Anabta. Two British soldiers were killed, along with 10 or 11 Arabs in what the New York Herald Tribune termed a "major fight" in the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine and The Baltimore Sun described as the "heaviest engagement" of the revolt at that point.

Battle

In what The Baltimore Sun described as the "heaviest engagement" of the revolt to date, a convoy of Egged civilian buses was traveling under the protection of British troops when it was ambushed at a point about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Anabta by an estimated 60 to 70 Arab fighters – part of a faction controlled by Ibrahim Nassar – in an encounter that rapidly escalated into a "pitched battle". Sergeant Henry Sills of the Seaforth Highlanders was killed early in the battle; his body was later dragged off the road and into a cave by Arab irregulars. Fighting began at 11am and continued until night fell. Reinforcements arrived from Tulkarm.

Arab fighters had blocked the road with a "barricade of stones," firing on the convoy from cover when it halted to remove the barricade. The second soldier killed was a private in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Three British battalions from Brigadier John Fullerton Evetts' 16th Infantry Brigade, and four airplanes took part in the battle against an unknown number of Arab militants; three British planes were hit by Arab gunfire but managed to land safely at the airport in Tulkarm. Arab fighters were able to hold the British troops "at bay" until the arrival of British airplanes, machine gun fire from the planes separated the Arabs into two sections that British troops were then able to "encircle and rout." British aircraft then arrived to transport the wounded to hospital.