Category: War, from Wikidata’s class “armed conflict”
Stalemate in Southern Palestine
Part of: Middle Eastern theater of World War I, Sinai and Palestine Campaign
Wikidata classes on our event-class list: armed conflict (all its classes: Wikidata item)
The Stalemate in Southern Palestine was a six-month standoff between the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) and the Ottoman Army in World War I. The two hostile forces faced each other along the Gaza to Beersheba line during the Sinai and Palestine campaign, with neither side able to force its opponent to withdraw. The stalemate began in April 1917 with the defeat of the EEF by the Ottoman Army at the Second Battle of Gaza and lasted until the EEF offensive began with the Battle of Beersheba on 31 October 1917.
Previous to the stalemate, units of the Ottoman Fourth Army had been forced out of the Sinai Peninsula by a series of EEF victories: the Battle of Romani in August 1916, the Battle of Magdhaba in December and the Battle of Rafa in January 1917. The EEF followed up those victories by making two unsuccessful attempts to capture Gaza: the First Battle of Gaza in March, and the Second Battle of Gaza in April. These two Ottoman victories halted the attempted EEF invasion of southern Palestine, leading to the stalemate.
During the six-month-long stalemate, the EEF held positions on the edge of the Negev Desert, while both sides engaged in continuous trench warfare and contested mounted patrolling of the open eastern flank. Both sides took the opportunity to reorganise their forces, change commanders, conduct training and prepare for future major battles, which resulted in the EEF capture of Jerusalem in December 1917.
Text retrieved 2026-10-06 from Wikipedia.
Cite this
The link is the Wikipedia revision of September 2, 2026 (revision 1372722548), whose lead is exactly the text shown here.
APA 7
Stalemate in Southern Palestine. (2026, September 2). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stalemate_in_Southern_Palestine&oldid=1372722548
MLA 9
“Stalemate in Southern Palestine.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Sept. 2026, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stalemate_in_Southern_Palestine&oldid=1372722548.
Chicago (note)
Wikipedia, “Stalemate in Southern Palestine,” last modified September 2, 2026, 00:09 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stalemate_in_Southern_Palestine&oldid=1372722548.
Chicago (shortened note)
Wikipedia, “Stalemate in Southern Palestine.”
Chicago cites well-known reference works such as Wikipedia in notes only, not in the bibliography.
This event on Middle East, 1900–present: https://middleeast.events/event/stalemate-in-southern-palestine
If you use the map’s borders: CShapes 2.0 - historical country borders. Schvitz, G., et al. (2022). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/ (modified by middleeast.events); West Bank Areas A/B/C: UN OCHA / HDX "Oslo Agreement" Areas A/B/C (West Bank). Distributed under the legacy HumanitarianResponse.info terms: non-commercial use with credit to UN OCHA. https://data.humdata.org/dataset/state-of-palestine-other-0-0-0-0-0; some corrected border points: GeoNames - CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://www.geonames.org/
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Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Wikipedia contributors, from the article Stalemate in Southern Palestine. Classes are Wikidata’s labels (CC0). “Part of” is Wikidata’s statement, in its labels (CC0).