Battles of Latrun (1948) - Aftermath

Aftermath

At the operational level, the five assaults on Latrun were solved with Israeli defeats and Jordanian victories: the Jordanians repelled all assaults and kept control of the road between the coastal plain and Jerusalem, with Israel losing 168 killed and many more injured. Strategically, the outcome included:

• The opening of the Burma Road to the Israelis to bypass Latrun and supply the 100,000 Jewish inhabitants of West Jerusalem with arms, munitions and equipment;
• If the control of West Jerusalem by Israel hold some of their forces, the Arab Legion control of Latrun, 15 kilometres (10 mi) from Tel Aviv, was a thorn in the side of Israeli forces;
• Latrun was a pivot point of the Legion's deployment; Glubb Pacha massed a third of his troops there; its fall would have caused the one of Jerusalem and probably of Cisjordan as a whole.

At the discussions of the Israeli-Jordano Armistice at Rhodes, the Israelis demanded unsuccessfully for the removal of the legion from Latrun. It subsequently remained under Jordanian control until the Six-Day War.