Whatever happened to the famous ink flag? On Thursday, 67 years after it was raised in what would later become the southern city of Eilat, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office is calling on the public to help search for the original ink flag. Anyone who knows its whereabouts is requested to come and help find it, in time for the celebrations of Eilat liberation day.
The raising of the ink flag is as meaningful to most Israelis as the Iwo Jima scene is to most Americans. On March 5, 1949, the IDF launched the Uvda (Fact) operation, which received its name from the need to create a de facto Israeli sovereignty in the south—rather than actually conquer it—before the war was officially over. In fact, it was the last IDF campaign during the war and its objective was to capture the southern Negev desert, which was claimed by the Kingdom of Jordan to be under Jordanian control in the armistice talks of 1949. The Negev, Golani and Alexandroni brigades participated in the operation, as well as a number of smaller units.
The forces raced down the road to the Red Sea, clearing whatever minor resistance they met on their way, with the idea that all the territory through which they pass would be claimed by Israel at the armistice negotiations table on the island of Rhodes (those were eventually signed on April 3).
On the morning of March 10, an aerial photographer discovered that the police station guarding the Ras al Naqab station was abandoned. The Negev Brigade set out towards the Umm Rashrash station through Ras al Naqab. Negev and Golani Brigades competed over who would reach the Red Sea first, and on March 10 at 3 PM, the Negev Brigade was the first to reach the abandoned police station at Umm Rashrash (where the city of Eilat was later built). The Golani Brigade arrived two hours later. Now they needed to establish Israel’s sovereignty on the entire swath of wilderness from Be’er Sheva all the way down to Eilat, by raising the flag — and there was no flag to raise.
Between 3 and 4 PM on March 10, the exhausted warriors used pen ink to draw two blue stripes and a star of David on a bed sheet and raised it on a pole by 4 PM. The front commander sent the following telegram to headquarters: “On Hagana day, the 11th of Adar, the Palmach Negev brigade and the Golani brigade present the Gulf of Eilat to the State of Israel.”
Now the ink flag gone. Adar 11 falls on March 21 this year, which is when the residents of Eilat get together to commemorate the brave and kind of sneaky men of the early Israeli army by raising their improvised ink flag, which explains the slight panic in the IDF spokesperson’s message. If you’ve seen it, please write [email protected] or bring it over. No questions asked.