Operation Lot

The Sedom potash works, established in 1936, operated beside a workers' camp. For about twelve years, roughly 200 workers—mostly kibbutz members who volunteered for a year of service—lived and worked there.[2] Before overland contact was established, the works were accessible only by boat across the Dead Sea.[4]

During the War of Independence, Jewish workers at Rabbat Ashlag and Kallia and settlers from Bet ha-Aravah were cut off by Transjordan's Arab Legion. On the night of 19 May 1948, they evacuated by boat and sailed south to Sedom, where they joined the existing labor force and helped defend the potash plant.[1]

The Jordanian Legion shelled and besieged the area, while the Israeli air force gradually evacuated trapped personnel, including women and children.[2] Those who remained endured severe hunger and thirst until contact with the rest of Israel was renewed.[4] The siege lasted about five months before Operation Lot brought relief.[2]

A Mako chronology places the start of Operation Lot on 8 November 1948, during the continuing southern-front campaign after Operation Yoav.[3] IDF forces reestablished overland contact with Sedom.[1] During the operation, they also took control of the British Mandate-era Ein Hatzov police station.[6][7] The advance ended the five-month siege of the Sedom workers' camp and factory.[2]

Palmach veteran Yohanan Elishuv fought in Operation Lot as part of a sequence of southern campaigns that included the capture of Beersheba and the later Operations Horev and Uvda.[5] A National Library of Israel archival description summarizes Lot's purpose as "פתיחת הדרך לסדום"—the opening of the road to Sodom.[8]

Following the renewal of overland contact, Israeli Army units moved north along the Dead Sea shore and reached En-Gedi in March 1949.[1] The Golani Brigade later organized at the Ein Hatzov police station site on its way to Eilat.[6]

Restoring contact did not bring an immediate industrial recovery. After the war, only six workers remained to maintain the camp and works; they included Musia Langotsky, who later died there.[2] During the intervening years, existing machinery became unusable through corrosion, and a new plant had to be constructed.[4]

Production at Sedom did not resume until 1954, after the Beersheba–Sedom road was built.[4] Novomeysky's Potash Company did not return to operations at Sedom; the facility was instead rebuilt and expanded by the Dead Sea Works group.[2]

The consulted sources differ over the operation's date. The National Library archival description places Operation Lot in November 1948.[8] Two Ynet reports likewise associate the operation with November.[6][7] Globes also gives November, while Mako specifies 8 November.[2][3] By contrast, one Encyclopedia.com entry dates the renewal of contact to December 1948 and another places it in October.[4][1]

Britannica describes an IDF relief column reaching Sedom after more than six months of air supply but does not identify the column as Operation Lot.[9] The sources also emphasize different captured sites: Mako associates the operation with the Sodom area and the Iraqi Suwaydan police station, while the Ynet accounts identify the Ein Hatzov police station.[3][6] The consulted accounts do not reconcile these chronological and site-attribution differences.