Tel Hai Israel Israel

The Muslim Arabs have begun attacks both on the Christian villages of southern Lebanon and on the isolated Jewish settlements of Upper Galilee.

Tel Hay and adjacent Kefar Gil'adi are determined to defend themselves, and Tel Hay is reinforced from Jerusalem by members of ha-Shomer, the Jewish workers' protective organization, under the command of the veteran Joseph Trumpeldor.

Tel Hay, one of the first Jewish settlements in the Galilee region, is attacked by a large band of Arabs; six of the defenders, including Trumpeldor, are killed on March 1, 1920.

Intermittently inhabited from 1905, and permanently settled as a pastoral camp and border outpost in 1918, the settlement's name (Hebrew: "Hill of Life") is an onomatopoetic derivation from the former Arabic name, Talha.

The resistance of Tel Hay has not only become legendary throughout Jewish Palestine but also is an important factor in the final determination of the northern boundary of mandated Palestine.

As finally drawn, the agreement gives all of Upper Galilee and a "finger" of territory reaching almost to the sources of the Jordan River to Great Britain, to the disadvantage of France.

Tel Hai, resettled in 1921, iis absorbed into the kibbutz of Kefar Gil'adi in 1926.

Its eight defenders (including two killed earlier in 1919 and 1920) were buried on an adjoining hill overlooking the Hula Valley; a monumental memorial statue of the Lion of Judah marks the site.

Joseph Trumpeldor's last words ("It is good to die for our country") are inscribed on its base.