Last modified: 2007-06-16 by dov gutterman
Keywords: ink flag | elat | eilat | umm rashrash |
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On March 10, 1949, two Israeli brigades
- Negev and Golani - converged on the police station of Umm
Rashrash on the Red Sea, now known as the resort city of Elat, and occupied it without firing a
shot. This act completed the occupation of the Negev Desert,
allocated to their government by the United
Nations partition plan and was the last operation of Israel's
War of Independence. However none of the soldiers had remembered
to bring a flag with them, so a soldier by the name of Micha Peri
hand drew one by pouring blue ink on a sheet. The result was
apparently a kosher Israeli national flag with one
exception - Peri appears to have smeared the Shield of David
device, and filled it in entirely [as on this 1947 flag proposal]. This design
was never used again.
Stan Brin, 1 January 1999
The flag is known as the Ink Flag. I found a good picture of it at the Elat website. The name of the
police station was Umm Reshrash, and it was standing just where
the city mall is today.
Dov Gutterman, 2 January and 1 June 1999
This scene of raising the Ink Flag at Eilat (...)
reminds me of the Iwo Jima scene. The original poster mentioned
the man who made the flag, but the man who is more famous is the
man who hoisted the flag. His name is Avraham Adan, known as Bren
(like the machine gun). He rose to be a general, his last
commission in the army was Commander of the Armory, some 25-30
years ago.
Nahum Shereshevsky, 4 January 1999
A monument in remembrance of the event was erected in 1996 and
a photo of the monument side by side with a photo of the hoisting
of the ink flag can be seen at the bottom of <www.eilat.muni.il>.
Dov Gutterman, 5 April 2005
