Air raids by the EEF were carried out during the night of 1/2 November, with twelve bombs being dropped on Gaza, and on 3 and 4 November, with air raids over the hills north of Beersheba. During a Khamsin on 3 November while the bombardment of Gaza resumed, the 1/4th Battalion The Essex Regiment (161st Brigade, 54th Division, XXI Corps) attacked and captured Yunis trench at 04:30. However, they were heavily counterattacked and forced to withdraw. The following night, several strong Ottoman counterattacks were made on the 75th Division's position at Sheikh Abbas on the eastern side of Gaza, which were all stopped by machine gun and rifle fire. Meanwhile, the newly won position at Sheikh Hasan on the Ottoman right flank was consolidated. By 5 November 1917, the Ottoman XXII Corps commander in charge of the defence of Gaza, Colonel Refet Bele, was continuing to maintain the "integrity of the Gaza fortress", despite the Gaza garrison's artillery batteries having only about 300 shells left. These batteries had also been suffering from effective counter-battery fire from the EEF Heavy Artillery Groups. Refet had been warned the day before that evacuation may be necessary because of the loss of Beersheba, so plans were prepared for the complete withdrawal from the town during the night of 6/7 November, to a new defensive line on the Wadi Hesi. Falkenhayn commanding Yildirim Army Group realised that the Ottoman forces could not hold the EEF any longer, and he ordered the Eighth and Seventh Armies to withdraw about . The first indications of the withdrawal were seen by EEF aerial reconnaissance, which reported Ottoman hospitals being moved back towards Mejdel. At midnight on 6/7 November, XXI Corps infantry patrols found Gaza had been evacuated by the Ottoman defenders. Until 6 November, German aircraft had rarely been seen over the Gaza lines, but that afternoon two R.E.8s and two B.E.12.as from No. 1 Squadron AFC patrolling and taking photographs were attacked and badly damaged by four Albatros aircraft. Meanwhile, the heavy EEF bombardment of the Ottoman line in the XXI Corps area at Gaza, which had resumed on 3 November, grew in intensity with the naval guns joining in on 5 and 6 November, and it reached its maximum intensity on 6 November. During the night of 6/7 November the XXI Corps was to launch an attack on Outpost Hill and the Yunus and Belah trench systems, after the main EEF attack on Hareira and Sheria began.