The Six-Day War, or the 1967 Arab–Israeli war (5–10 June 1967), was fought between Israel and a coalition of six Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In the war, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
Hostilities broke out amid continual armed border incidents as well as rising Pan-Arab Nationalism, which aimed to unite Arab nations around opposition to Israel. In April 1967, a border incident between Israel and Syria, led to an aerial engagement in which six Syrian jets were shot down. This led to false reports by the Soviet Union that Israel intended to launch a major ground attack upon Syria.
In mid May, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser mobilized 100,000 Egyptian troops to the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UN peacekeepers form the region. Eight days later, Nassar announced that the Straits of Tiran, Israel’s only access to the Red Sea, would be closed to Israeli vessels. Israel had already stated that closure of the straits would be considered an act of war. On May 30, Egypt signed a defense pact with Jordan, a pact with Syria having been concluded the previous November. The following day, at Jordan's invitation, the Iraqi army began deploying troops and armored units in Jordan.
On June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The war began on 5 June 1967 with Operation Focus, an Israeli surprise attack consisting of a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities as the UNEF was leaving the zone. Israel caught Egyptian forces by surprise and destroyed nearly all of Egypt's air force, giving Israel air supremacy.
Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. Jordan joined the offensive later that morning, with an attack on West Jerusalem.
After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the fourth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.
Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire on 8 June, and Syria on 9 June, and it was signed with Israel on 11 June. The Six-Day War resulted in more than 15,000 Arab fatalities, and fewer than 1,000 Israeli. Alongside the combatant casualties were the deaths of 20 Israeli civilians killed in Arab forces air strikes on Jerusalem, 15 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strikes in the Sinai at the outset of the war, and 34 US personnel killed in the USS Liberty incident, in which Israeli air and naval forces mistakenly assaulted a United States Navy spy ship.
When hostilities ceased, Israel had occupied the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. The displacement of civilian populations as a result of the Six-Day War had long-term consequences, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, respectively. Nasser resigned in shame after Israel's victory, but was reinstated after a series of protests across Egypt. In the aftermath of the conflict, Egypt closed the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975.
The Six-Day War, or the 1967 Arab–Israeli war (5–10 June 1967), was fought between Israel and a coalition of six Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict. The war, in which Israel conquered and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank of the Jordan River, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, shaped the political and strategic landscape of the Middle East into the 21st century. Many of the war's consequences remain unresolved.
The war broke out amid continual armed border incidents as well as rising Pan-Arab Nationalism, which aimed to unite Arab nations around opposition to Israel. In April 1967, a border incident between Israel and Syria, led to an aerial engagement in which six Syrian jets were shot down. This led to false reports by the Soviet Union that Israel intended to launch a major ground attack upon Syria.
In mid May, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser mobilized 100,000 Egyptian troops to the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UN peacekeepers from the region. Eight days later, Nassar announced that the Straits of Tiran, Israel’s only access to the Red Sea, would be closed to Israeli vessels. Israel had already stated that closure of the straits would be considered an act of war.
On May 26th, Nassar explained that the blockade meant "confrontation with Israel (and) also meant that we were ready to enter a general war with Israel. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel”
On May 30, Egypt signed a defense pact with Jordan, a pact with Syria having been concluded the previous November. The following day, at Jordan's invitation, the Iraqi army began deploying troops and armored units in Jordan.
On June 1, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on June 4 the decision was made to go to war. The war began on 5 June 1967 with Operation Focus, an Israeli surprise attack consisting of a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities as the UNEF was leaving the zone. Israel caught Egyptian forces by surprise and destroyed nearly all of Egypt's air force, giving Israel air supremacy.
Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. Jordan joined the offensive later that morning, with an attack on West Jerusalem. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the fourth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.. By Saturday, Israeli forces occupied the Golan, and stabilized a position overlooking the Damascus Plain.
Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire on 8 June, and Syria on 10 June, and it was signed with Israel on 11 June. The Six-Day War resulted in more than 15,000 Arab fatalities, and fewer than 1,000 Israeli. Alongside the combatant casualties were the deaths of 20 Israeli civilians killed in Arab forces air strikes on Jerusalem, 15 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strikes in the Sinai at the outset of the war, and 34 US personnel killed in the USS Liberty incident, in which Israeli air and naval forces mistakenly assaulted a United States Navy spy ship.
When hostilities ceased, Israel had occupied the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. The displacement of civilian populations as a result of the Six-Day War had long-term consequences, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, respectively. Nasser resigned in shame after Israel's victory, but was reinstated after a series of protests across Egypt. In the aftermath of the conflict, Egypt closed the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975.
Background
After the 1956 Suez Crisis, Egypt agreed to the stationing of a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in the Sinai to ensure all parties would comply with the 1949 Armistice Agreements. In the following years, there were numerous minor border clashes between Israel and its Arab neighbors, particularly Syria. In early November 1966, Syrian president Nureddin al-Atassi signed a mutual defense agreement with Egypt. Soon thereafter, in response to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerilla activity, including a mine attack that left three dead, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) attacked the village of as-Samu in the Jordanian-ruled West Bank. Jordanian units that engaged the Israelis were quickly beaten back. King Hussein of Jordan criticized Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser for failing to come to Jordan's aid and "hiding behind UNEF skirts".
In May 1967, Nasser received false reports from the Soviet Union that Israel was massing on the Syrian border. Nasser began massing his troops in two defensive lines in the Sinai Peninsula on Israel's border (16 May), expelled the UNEF force from Gaza and Sinai (19 May), and took over UNEF positions at Sharm el-Sheikh, overlooking the Straits of Tiran. Israel repeated declarations it had made in 1957 that any closure of the Straits would be considered an act of war or justification for war, but on 22-23 May, Nasser ordered the Straits to be closed to Israeli shipping. After the war, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson said:
If a single act of folly was more responsible for this explosion than any other, it was the arbitrary and dangerous announced decision that the Straits of Tiran would be closed. The right of innocent, maritime passage must be preserved for all nations.
On 30 May, Jordan and Egypt signed a defense pact. On 31 May, having earlier declined Hussein's invitation to send troops to Jordan, Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arif agreed to deploy troops and armored units in Jordan to confront Israel. They were later reinforced by an Egyptian contingent. On 1 June, Israel formed a National Unity Government by widening its cabinet, and on 4 June the decision was made to go to war. The next morning, Israel launched Operation Focus, the surprise air strike that launched the war.
Military preparation
Before the war, Israeli pilots and ground crews had trained extensively in rapid refitting of aircraft returning from sorties, enabling a single aircraft to sortie up to four times a day, as opposed to the norm in Arab air forces of one or two. This enabled the Israeli Air Force (IAF) to send several attack waves against Egyptian airfields on the war's first day, overwhelming the Egyptian Air Force and allowing the IAF to knock out other Arab air forces the same day. Pilots were extensively schooled about their targets, memorized layouts in detail, and rehearsed the operation multiple times on dummy runways in total secrecy.
The Egyptians had constructed fortified defenses in the Sinai. These designs were based on the assumption that an attack would come along the few roads leading through the desert rather than through the difficult desert terrain. The Israelis chose not to risk attacking the Egyptian defenses head-on, instead surprising them from an unexpected direction.
James Reston wrote in The New York Times on 23 May 1967: "In discipline, training, morale, equipment and general competence his [Nasser's] army and the other Arab forces, without the direct assistance of the Soviet Union, are no match for the Israelis. ... Even with 50,000 troops and the best of his generals and air force in Yemen, he has not been able to work his way in that small and primitive country, and even his effort to help the Congo rebels was a flop."
On the eve of the war, Israel believed it could win a war in 3–4 days. The United States estimated Israel would need 7–10 days, with British estimates supporting the U.S. view.
Armies and weapons
Armies
The Israeli army had a total strength, including reservists, of 264,000, though this number could not be sustained during a long conflict, as the reservists were vital to civilian life.
Against Jordan's forces on the West Bank, Israel deployed about 40,000 troops and 200 tanks (eight brigades). Israeli Central Command forces consisted of five brigades. The first two were permanently stationed near Jerusalem and were the Jerusalem Brigade and the mechanized Harel Brigade. Mordechai Gur's 55th Paratroopers Brigade was summoned from the Sinai front. The 10th Armored Brigade was stationed north of the West Bank. The Israeli Northern Command comprised a division of three brigades led by Major General Elad Peled which was stationed in the Jezreel Valley to the north of the West Bank.
On the eve of the war, Egypt massed approximately 100,000 of its 160,000 troops in the Sinai, including all seven of its divisions (four infantry, two armored and one mechanized), four independent infantry brigades and four independent armored brigades. Over a third of these soldiers were veterans of Egypt's continuing intervention into the North Yemen Civil War and another third were reservists. These forces had 950 tanks, 1,100 APCs, and more than 1,000 artillery pieces.
Syria's army had a total strength of 75,000 and was deployed along the border with Israel. Professor David W. Lesch wrote that "One would be hard-pressed to find a military less prepared for war with a clearly superior foe" since Syria's army had been decimated in the months and years prior through coups and attempted coups that had resulted in a series of purges, fractures, and uprisings within the armed forces.
The Jordanian Armed Forces included 11 brigades, totaling 55,000 troops. Nine brigades (45,000 troops, 270 tanks, 200 artillery pieces) were deployed in the West Bank, including the elite armored 40th, and two in the Jordan Valley. They possessed sizable numbers of M113 APCs and were equipped with some 300 modern Western tanks, 250 of which were U.S. M48 Pattons. They also had 12 battalions of artillery, six batteries of 81 mm and 120 mm mortars, a paratrooper battalion trained in the new U.S.-built school and a new battalion of mechanized infantry. The Jordanian Army was a long-term-service, professional army, relatively well-equipped and well-trained. Israeli post-war briefings said that the Jordanian staff acted professionally but was always left "half a step" behind by the Israeli moves. The small Royal Jordanian Air Force consisted of only 24 British-made Hawker Hunter fighters, six transport aircraft and two helicopters. According to the Israelis, the Hawker Hunter was essentially on par with the French-built Dassault Mirage III – the IAF's best plane.
One hundred Iraqi tanks and an infantry division were readied near the Jordanian border. Two squadrons of Iraqi fighter-aircraft, Hawker Hunters and MiG 21s, were rebased adjacent to the Jordanian border.
In the weeks leading up to the war, Saudi Arabia mobilized forces for deployment to the Jordanian front. A Saudi infantry battalion entered Jordan on 6 June, followed by another on 8 June. Both were based in Jordan's southernmost city, Ma'an. By 17 June, the Saudi contingent in Jordan had grown to include a single infantry brigade, a tank company, two artillery batteries, a heavy mortar company, and a maintenance and support unit. By the end of July, a second tank company and a third artillery battery had been added. These forces remained in Jordan until the end of 1977, when they were recalled for re-equipment and retraining in the Karak region near the Dead Sea.
The Arab air forces were reinforced by aircraft from Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to make up for the massive losses suffered on the first day of the war. They were also aided by volunteer pilots from the Pakistan Air Force acting in an independent capacity. PAF pilots like Saiful Azam shot down several Israeli planes.
Weapons
With the exception of Jordan, the Arabs relied principally on Soviet weaponry. Jordan's army was equipped with American weaponry, and its air force was composed of British aircraft.
Egypt had by far the largest and the most modern of all the Arab air forces, consisting of about 420 combat aircraft, all of them Soviet-built and with a large number of top-of-the-line MiG-21s. Of particular concern to the Israelis were the 30 Tu-16 "Badger"medium bombers, capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israeli military and civilian centers.
Israeli weapons were mainly of Western origin. Its air force was composed principally of French aircraft, while its armored units were mostly of British and American design and manufacture. Some light infantry weapons, including the ubiquitous Uzi, were of Israeli origin.
Nuclear weapons
Israel is believed to have begun full-scale production of nuclear weapons following the 1967 Six-Day War, although it had built its first operational nuclear weapon by December 1966. A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report from early 1967 stated that Israel had the materials to construct a bomb in six to eight weeks and some authors suggest that Israel had two crude bombs ready for use during the war. According to US journalist Seymour Hersh, everything was ready for production at this time save an official order to do so. Israel crossed the nuclear threshold on the eve of the Six-Day War in May 1967. "[Prime Minister] Eshkol, according to a number of Israeli sources, secretly ordered the Dimona [nuclear reactor] scientists to assemble two crude nuclear devices. He placed them under the command of Brigadier General Yitzhak Yaakov, the chief of research and development in Israel's Defense Ministry. The crude atomic bombs were readied for deployment on trucks that could race to the Egyptian border for detonation in the event Arab forces overwhelmed Israeli defenses." Spider (Hebrew: עכביש) was the name for the devices. The name for the plan was Operation Shimshon (Hebrew: מבצע שמשון), named after the death of Samson in Judges 16:30. It was also referred to as Operation Samson,
codename "Samson" (Hebrew: שם הקוד "שמשון"), or (Hebrew: מבצע שמשון, romanized: Mivtza Shimshon). General Yaakov also sometimes called the plan Operation Doomsday. (Hebrew: מבצע יום הדין, romanized: Mivtza Yum Hadin).
Fighting fronts
Initial attack
The first and most critical move of the conflict was a surprise Israeli attack on the Egyptian Air Force. Initially, both Egypt and Israel announced that they had been attacked by the other country.
On 5 June at 7:45 Israeli time, with civil defense sirens sounding all over Israel, the IAF launched Operation Focus (Moked). All but 12 of its nearly 200 operational jets launched a mass attack against Egypt's airfields. The Egyptian defensive infrastructure was extremely poor, and no airfields were yet equipped with hardened aircraft shelters capable of protecting Egypt's warplanes. Most of the Israeli warplanes headed out over the Mediterranean Sea, flying low to avoid radar detection, before turning toward Egypt. Others flew over the Red Sea.
Meanwhile, the Egyptians hindered their own defense by effectively shutting down their entire air defense system: they were worried that rebel Egyptian forces would shoot down the plane carrying Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer and Lt-Gen. Sidqi Mahmoud, who were en route from al Maza to Bir Tamada in the Sinai to meet the commanders of the troops stationed there. It did not make a great deal of difference as the Israeli pilots came in below Egyptian radar cover and well below the lowest point at which its SA-2 surface-to-air missile batteries could bring down an aircraft.