Battle of Rafa

The Battle of Rafa (also known by the British as the Action of Rafah) took place on 9 January 1917 at el Magruntein to the south of Rafa, close to the frontier between the Sultanate of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Ottoman Empire, in the area to the north and east of Sheikh Zowaiid. This British Empire victory over an entrenched Ottoman Empire garrison marked the end of fighting in the Sinai peninsula during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War.

After the British Empire victories at the Battle of Romani in August 1916 and the Battle of Magdhaba in December, the Ottoman Army had been forced to retreat back across the Sinai Peninsula to the southern edge of Palestine as the Egyptian Expeditionary Force pushed eastwards. By January 1917, construction of the railway and water pipeline was continuing with the railway reaching El Arish on 4 January. This extension of the lines of communication made an attack on Rafa by the newly formed Desert Column possible. After a day-long attack the El Magruntein Ottoman position; a series of strategically strong and fortified redoubts and trenches on rising ground surrounded by flat grassland, was encircled and captured by Australian Light Horsemen, New Zealand mounted riflemen, mounted yeomanry and armoured cars in the late afternoon.