April 16 1799 – 11 Nisan 5559
Napoleon and his army won the battle of Mount Tabor during his campaign in Egypt and the Holy Land. The battle was fought in the Jezreel valley, between Moreh hill and Mount Tabor, close to the modern day site of Kibbutz Merhavia. Napoleon’s forces defeated an Ottoman army under Abdullah Pasha al-Azm, ruler of Damascus. The French army was commanded by Napoleon himself and General Jean-Baptiste Kléber. In the battle’s first stage, Kléber’s 2500 troops acted in the Galilee to secure the rear of French soldiers besieging Acre, against a much larger enemy force of 20,000 men. Kléber was almost overwhelmed by superior numbers until Napoleon came to his aid with a further 2000 men and twenty cannons, winning the French army the day. Napoleon’s army was now free to continue its attack on Acre – although he failed to capture the city before retreating to Cairo with his exhausted, plague stricken troops.