Burma Road (Israel)

During the early phase of the 1948 Palestine war (from November 29, 1947 to May 15, 1948), local Arab forces took control of the hills overlooking the road to Jerusalem (Highway 1), between Sha'ar HaGai (Bab el-Wad) and Al-Qastal, in effect besieging the city's Jewish population.

On May 15, 1948, British forces withdrew from the Latrun monastery and police fort that dominated the road and prevented supplies from reaching Jerusalem.

However, on the night of May 18, British-officered Arab Legion forces from Transjordan seized Latrun, and subsequent Jewish attempts to gain a foothold in the region failed.

A small amount of supplies, mostly munitions, were ferried by air, but the shortage of food, water, fuel and medicines was acute.

[1] Several Israeli attempts to take the Arab Legion's position in Latrun failed, but surrounding parts of the road were cleared of snipers by the end of May.

saw that fire from the Latrun fort could be avoided by building another road screened from its Ordnance QF 25 pounder guns, allowing truck convoys to reach Jerusalem.

When 150 troops moved on foot from Hulda to Harel Brigade headquarters near Abu Ghosh, that suggested that it would be possible to modify the "gazelle path" they followed, to be hidden from the Latrun fort and accommodate vehicular traffic.

The 1966 film Cast a Giant Shadow, which dramatizes the career of Mickey Marcus, has a major part dedicated to the construction of the Burma Road.