What army surrounded Nasser's brigade?
In May 1948, following the British withdrawal, King Farouk sent the Egyptian army into Palestine, with Nasser serving in the 6th Infantry Battalion. During the war, he wrote of the Egyptian army's unpreparedness, saying "our soldiers were dashed against fortifications". Nasser was deputy commander of the Egyptian forces that secured the Faluja pocket. On 12 July, he was lightly wounded in the fighting. By August, his brigade was surrounded by the Israeli Army. Appeals for help from Jordan's Arab Legion went unheeded, but the brigade refused to surrender. Negotiations between Israel and Egypt finally resulted in the ceding of Faluja to Israel. According to veteran journalist Eric Margolis, the defenders of Faluja, "including young army officer Gamal Abdel Nasser, became national heroes" for enduring Israeli bombardment while isolated from their command.