Operation Uvda

Operation Uvda (Hebrew: מבצע עובדה‎‎, Mivtza Uvda) was an operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, from March 5 to March 10, 1949. It was the last campaign undertaken by the IDF during the war and its objective was to capture the southern Negev desert, which was claimed by the Kingdom of Jordan to be under Jordanian control in the armistice talks of 1949.

The southern Negev was designated to be part of the Jewish State in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. The name uvda (עובדה) is Hebrew for "fact", referring to the operation's objective to establish de facto Israeli sovereignty over the territory in question, rather than actually conquer it. As such, the Israeli forces did not meet significant resistance on their way. The region claimed during this operations is now referred to as Uvda.

The Negev, Golani and Alexandroni brigades participated in the operation, as well as a number of smaller units.

In January 1949, slightly over a month before the operation, a small unit was dispatched to reconnoiter the southern Negev, with limited resources and no ability to receive tactical aid. The unit's mission was to map the region, as the best available map of the time was a GSGS map scaled 1:250,000. The unit was reinforced by reconnaissance aircraft and heavy use was made of aerial photography stereoscopic imaging.

The unit moved in two parts: one through the center of the Negev and one through the Arava. It was strictly forbidden to engage the Jordanian Arab Legion or enter the Sinai. The unit encountered Bedouins in Ras al-Naqb and immediately set out to return to Beersheba using a different route. As a result, the Arab Legion again manned posts at Ras al-Naqb, which had previously been abandoned.

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