Battle of Tel Hai

In the course of the event, a Shiite Arab militia, accompanied by Bedouin from a nearby village, entered a Jewish agricultural locality of Tel Hai in search of French soldiers.

Joseph Trumpeldor, the commander of Jewish defenders of Tel Hai, was shot in the hand and stomach, and died while being evacuated to Kfar Giladi that evening.

The event is perceived by some scholars as part of the Franco-Syrian War and by some as an outbreak of violence in the later developing intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.

Tel Hai had been intermittently inhabited since 1905 and was permanently settled as a Jewish border outpost in 1918, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

[2][3][4] At the beginning of the Franco-Syrian War, the Upper Galilee was populated by several semi-nomadic Bedouin Arab tribes, the largest residing in Halasa, and four tiny Jewish settlements, including Metula, Kfar Giladi, Tel Hai and Hamra.

One of the farmers fired a shot into the air, a signal for reinforcements from nearby Kfar Giladi, which brought ten men led by Trumpeldor, who had been posted by Hashomer to organize defense.

He encountered one of the female Jewish residents named Deborah who pointed a pistol at Kamal, apparently surprised to see an armed Bedouin in the village.

According to Zionist folklore, his last words were "Doesn't matter, it is good to die (tov lamut) for our country" ("אין דבר, טוב למות בעד ארצנו").

However, in the 1990s a different theory has emerged, arguing that Trumpeldor's last words were, in fact, a pungent curse in his mother-tongue Russian, reflecting frustration with his bad luck, namely 'Fuck your mother' ((Yob tvoyú mat'),:ёб твою мать!).