The Australian mounted troops, extended over a wide front, secured the British flank and pressed forward on November 12, 1917, toward Balin, Berkusie, and Tel-es-Safi. Their advance troops were counterattacked and driven back a short distance, but the Turks made no effort to press farther forward. The British then decided to attack on November 13, 1917.
The country over which the attack took place is open and rolling, dotted with small villages surrounded by mud walls with plantations of trees outside the walls. The most prominent feature is the line of heights on which are the villages of Katrah and El Mughar, standing out above the low flat ground which separates them from the rising ground to the west, on which stands the village of Beshit, about 2,000 yards distant. This Katrah-El Mughar line forms a very strong position, and it was here that the Turks made their most determined resistance against the turning movement directed against their right flank. The 52d Division, assisted by a charge of mounted troops, who galloped across the plain under heavy fire and turned the Turkish position from the north, captured the position. Some 1,100 prisoners, three guns, and many machine guns were taken here. After this the Turkish resistance weakened, and by the evening the Turks were retiring east and north.
The British infantry, who were sent forward about dusk to occupy Junction Station, met with some resistance and halted, for the night, not much more than a mile west of the station. Early next morning (November 14, 1917) they occupied the station.
The Turkish army had now been broken into two separate parts, which retired north and east respectively.
In fifteen days the British force had advanced sixty miles on its right and about forty on its left. It had driven a Turkish army of nine infantry divisions and one cavalry division out of a position in which it had been intrenched for six months, and had pursued it, giving battle whenever it attempted to stand, and inflicting on it losses amounting probably to nearly two-thirds of its original effectives. Over 9,000 prisoners, about eighty guns, more than 100 machine guns, and very large quantities of ammunition and other stores had been captured.
After the capture of Junction Station on the morning of November 14, 1917, the British secured a position covering the station, while the mounted troops reached Kezaze that same evening.
The mounted troops pressed on toward Ramleh and Ludd. On the right Naaneh was attacked and captured in the morning, while on the left the New Zealand Mounted Rifles had an engagement at Ayun Kara (six miles south of Jaffa). Here the Turks made a determined counterattack and got to within fifteen yards of the British line. A bayonet attack drove them back with heavy loss.
Flanking the advance along the railway to Ramleh and covering the main road from Ramleh to Jerusalem, a ridge stands up prominently out of the low foothills surrounding it. This is the site of the ancient Gezer, near which the village of Abu Shusheh now stands. A Turkish rear guard had established itself on this feature. It was captured on the morning of November 15, 1917, by mounted troops, who galloped up the ridge from the south. A gun and 360 prisoners were taken in this affair.
By the evening of November 15, 1917, the mounted troops had occupied Ramleh and Ludd, and had pushed patrols to within a short distance of Jaffa. At Ludd 300 prisoners were taken, and five destroyed aeroplanes and a quantity of abandoned war material were found at Ramleh and Ludd.
Jaffa was occupied without opposition on the evening of November 16, 1917.