Tour in Israel of Kinneret and Gesher in the Galilee 22/2/26

 Last week Telfed had a tiyul (tour) that took us to the Kineret Collage south of the Kineret. Here we had an old guy who lives on a kibbutz nearby and he came from Perth.  He told us the story of this The Battle of Samakh. This is the final battle of the Battle of Magiddo. The ANZACs charged before dawn  and killing 98 Turks with Germans for a loss of 17 Australians. This was the final battle after that basically Kemal Ataturk was brought to the region to organize an orderly retreat. A few of the killed were Aboriginals and this is what the Statue is about.

The grave was supposed to have a cross on it but it was decided that it was better to keep it neutral and the hat on the back of the saddle is to stop people putting children on it. Visitors from Australia come and the grandchildren of the Aboriginal who fought in the war have also  visited. Samakh was an important station as it was the place that the coastal engine ended and a bigger locomotive was put on the train to take it up the mountain into Damascus. There was a turntable  to turn the engines around here. 

Afterwards we were taken to Gesher where their are 3 bridges across the Jordan River one from medieval times, parts of which could be Roman. The the Turkish railway bridge of 1904 and the third bridge was a British build bridge of 1925. Nearby is also a British Taggart Fort for the garrison of the area.

In 1948 about 2 weeks before Israel independence the Kibbutz Gesher members saw the British abandoning the fort and grabbed it they also destroyed all 3 bridges. The kibbutz was able to fend off the bombardment from the Jordanians . Later the Iraqi's arrived  and crossed the river further south.  However they never took the fort and were defeated.

You also learn the story of Naharyim the meeting of the 2 rivers the Yarkon and the Jordan. In 1926 Pincus Ruttenberg starting building a Hydropower Station. It started providing power in 1932. This power station worked till 1948