supply situation and decided that a force large enough to attack into the Judean Hills and a separate force to operate on the maritime plain could be maintained far from base. He decided to quickly attack Fevzi Pasha's Ottoman 7th Army in the Judean Hills with the hope of capturing Jerusalem. This would keep pressure on this army in the hope of denying them time to complete their reorganisation, dig deep trenches or worst of all, counterattack. Prelude British Empire supply lines The planned advance into the Judean Hills would rely heavily on the ability of the lines of communications to keep the front line troops supplied with food, water and ammunition. These were already operating at considerable distances from the railhead and base areas, and as a result the advance was forced to pause on 17 November to enable supplies to be brought forward by columns under corps control, which had been sent back to railhead for rations and supplies. Transporting supplies forward from railhead was a slow but continuous 24-hour-a-day business, because the Ottoman Army had destroyed as much of their infrastructure as they could during their retreat. Only lorries of the British Army Service Corps (ASC) Motor Transport companies and camels of the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps could use the single, narrow, poorly metalled road from Gaza to Junction Station. Between Gaza and Beit Hanun the road was unsealed and deep in sand making it difficult for lorries to proceed, even with a light load of one ton. Supplies were also shipped by sea and landed at Wadi Sukereir, and later at Jaffa. Lack of infrastructure at Jaffa meant all supplies brought via ship had to be cross-loaded onto surf boats, which then had to be unloaded on the beaches. Such operations were heavily dependent on the weather, so the amount of supplies transported by sea was limited. Feeding an army dependent on horses was a huge task. The marching ration of a horse was of grain a day, which, when multiplied by the 25,000 horses in the Desert Mounted Corps, worked out to over 100 tons of grain a day. One hundred lorries would be needed for the horses as well as transportation for rations required by the troops in the front line. All available lorries and camels were organised in convoys moving north from the railhead along the Gaza to Junction Station road from Deir