Magdhaba by the north and north–east to cut off of retreat, while the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade followed the telegraph line straight on Magdhaba. The 1st Light Horse Brigade reinforced the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade in an attack on the redoubts, but fierce shrapnel fire forced them to advance up the wadi bed. By midday all three brigades and a section of the Camel Brigade, with Vickers and Lewis Gun sections and HAC artillery were engaged in fierce fighting. Aerial reconnaissance to scout out the Ottoman positions greatly assisted the attack, although the six redoubts were well camouflaged. After tough fighting in the morning of 23 December, at about 13:00, Chauvel heard that the Turks still controlled most of the water in the area. It is claimed at this time that he decided to call off the attack. But at about the same time, after a telephone conversation between Chauvel and Chetwode, all British units attacked, and there was no doubt that the Turks were losing. Both the 1st Light Horse Brigade and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade made progress, capturing about 100 prisoners, and by 15:30 the Turks were beginning to surrender. By 16:30 the whole garrison had surrendered, having suffered heavy casualties, and the town was captured. The victory had cost the EEF 22 dead and 121 wounded. Battle of Rafa, January 1917 On the evening of 8 January 1917, mounted units of Desert Column including the Anzac Mounted Division, the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, the 5th Mounted Yeomanry Brigade, No. 7 Light Car Patrol and artillery, rode out of El Arish to attack the next day 9 January, a 2,000 to 3,000-strong Ottoman Army garrison at El Magruntein also known as Rafa or Rafah. Also on 9 January four British aircraft bombed the German aerodrome at Beersheba during the afternoon and in the evening, on the way back saw a considerable Ottoman force near Weli Sheikh Nuran. The British had reclaimed the northern section of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula virtually to the frontier with the Ottoman Empire, but the new British government of David Lloyd George wanted more. The British Army in Egypt was ordered to go on the offensive against the Ottoman Army in part to support the Arab revolt which had started early in 1916, and to build on the momentum created by the victories won at Romani in August and Magdhaba in December