The Battles of Bir 'Asluj refer to a series of military engagements between Israel and Egypt in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, around the localities Bir 'Asluj and the nearby Bir Thamila (also Bir Tamila or Bir Tmileh). Bir 'Asluj was a small Bedouin center and a strategic location on the 'Auja–Beersheba road. The Israelis captured the position early in the war, in an attempt to disconnect the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood forces from the main Egyptian Army concentration on the coastal plain, but set up positions across the road and the threat to their transport was neutralized.
The entire vicinity of Bir 'Asluj, including Bir Thamila, was captured by Israeli Negev Brigade forces on December 25–26, 1948, during Operation Horev. In the first stage, the 7th Battalion took Bir Thamila, but failed to reach the road and retreated with heavy losses. In the morning, armored vehicles from the 9th Battalion assaulted the Egyptian road positions and captured them. This was later followed by the conquest of the entire road to the border at 'Auja, expelling the Egyptian forces from Israel in this region.
Bir 'Asluj was a small Bedouin center belonging to the Azzazma tribe, with a mosque, market, water well, mill and police station. It was strategically located on a curve in the road from Sinai Peninsula, through 'Auja, to Be'er Sheva, Hebron and Jerusalem. Near it also passed the old southern railway line built by the Ottoman Empire in World War I. During the British Mandate, a British military base and a police station were located next to Bir 'Asluj. The road in question was used by the invading Egyptian army in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War for transport as its eastern wing into Hebron-Jerusalem corridor.
During the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, Bir 'Asluj was used as a base of operations for Bedouin paramilitary forces under Hajj Sa'id, mainly against the nearby Jewish villages of Revivim and Haluza, a few kilometers to the northwest. A Muslim Brotherhood unit situated itself in Bir 'Asluj on May 17, 1948.