The Valley of Tears (Hebrew: עֵמֶק הַבָּכָא, Emek HaBakha) is the name given to an area in the Golan Heights after it became the site of a major battle in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War, known as the Valley (or Vale) of Tears Battle, which was fought from 6 October to 9 October. Although massively outnumbered, the Israeli forces managed to hold their positions and on the fourth day of the battle the Syrians withdrew, just as the Israeli defences were almost at the point of collapse.
Background
On Yom Kippur eve (5 October), the Israeli 7th Brigade was ordered to move one battalion to the Golan Heights to strengthen the Barak Armored Brigade, under the command of Yitzhak Ben Shoham. The brigade commander Avigdor Ben-Gal concluded that something would happen on Yom Kippur. He ordered his artillery troops to survey the area and prepare targets and firing tables. He held a meeting with his battalion commanders to go over the main points of the operational plans that were previously implemented in the Israeli Northern Command. Without notifying his superiors, he took them on a tour of the front line. By 12:00 on Yom Kippur, 6 October, the brigade was concentrated in the Naffakh area. Naffakh was an important military base at the junction of the Petroleum Road, which crosses diagonally the northern Golan Heights, and a road which leads down to the strategic Bnot Yaakov Bridge over the Jordan River and into northern Israel.
Israeli Intelligence estimated that Syria had more than 900 tanks and 140 batteries of artillery immediately behind the Syrian line. The Syrian 7th Division was one of the units ready to attack. The actual number of Syrian tanks was about 1,260. Each Syrian infantry division had one infantry brigade, one mechanized infantry brigade, and one armoured brigade. The infantry and mechanized infantry brigades each had three infantry battalions, a battalion of forty tanks, an anti-aircraft (AA) artillery battalion and a field artillery battalion. The armoured brigade had three battalions of forty tanks each. The division also had a regiment of division field artillery, a divisional AA field artillery regiment, a reconnaissance regiment with a company attached to each brigade and a chemical company with a section attached to each brigade. The total force of the division was about 10,000 men, 200 tanks, 72 artillery pieces, 72 anti-aircraft guns and surface to air missiles (SAMs). The 7th Division, under the command of Brigadier-General Omar Abrash, had about 80% of its tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APCs). There were also independent armoured brigades with about 2,000 men and 120 tanks each. One of the independent brigades attached to Abrash's division was a Moroccan brigade. In the rear were the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, with 250 tanks each. The Syrian attack force was backed by at least 1,000 artillery pieces.
The Syrian plan was for the 7th Division to break through near Ahmadiyeh in the north while the 5th Division did the same near Rafid in the south. This would lead to the double envelopment of most of the Israeli forces in the Golan. Each division was to advance in two echelons, the 7th Division to strike westward through El Rom and Wassett while the 5th Division advanced to the Arik Bridge north of the Kinneret. If the 5th Division broke through, or if both the 5th and 7th did, the 1st Division would drive between the 5th and 9th for Naffakh to attack the Israeli forces caught between the pincers of the 5th and 7th. The Israeli forces in the Golan were 170 tanks and 60 artillery pieces divided between the 7th and the Barak brigades.
Prelude
At 10:00 on Yom Kippur (6 October), Ben-Gal and other brigade commanders convened with General Yitzhak Hofi in Naffakh, where Hofi told them that Intelligence was estimating the Syrians would attack that day, at around 18:00. The 7th Brigade was assigned as a reserve force around Naffakh and was to prepare for a counterattack in either the north or south sector, or to split and support both. Ben-Gal then drove to meet one battalion in Sindiana and address the officers. He called an orders group at Naffakh for 14:00, assuming it would give his second battalion enough time to organize. As they gathered to wait for him, the Syrian artillery and planes began to attack. Ben-Gal's men ran back to their battalions while Ben-Gal moved the headquarters out of the camp. After an hour, he was ordered to move to the northern sector in the Kuneitra area and to transfer the 2nd battalion to the southern sector, under the command of the Barak Brigade. The 7th Brigade was left in charge of the northern sector from Kuneitra northwards with two battalions.
As part of his usual strategy, Ben-Gal decided to maintain a reserve force and began building a third battalion. He transferred a company from one battalion and placed it under the command of his armoured infantry battalion, thus creating a third battalion framework with tanks. With reinforcements, the new battalion gradually became proper: Ben-Gal now had three battalions available for maneuvering purposes. He received Lieutenant-Colonel Yair Nafshi's 74th Battalion, which was in line with the fortifications in the northern sector. With Nafshi's battalion, the brigade had about 100 tanks. The first battalion was stationed on the Purple Line. The line began at the fortification A1, directly east of Mas'ade on the foothills of Mount Hermon, and ran south about six kilometres to Mount Hermonit.
Battle
First day
At 13:55, while Nafshi's sector came under a heavy artillery barrage, several soldiers along the Purple Line reported that the Syrians were removing the camouflage nets from their tanks and artillery. Ben Shoham ordered his battalion commanders, Nafshi and Oded Erez, to deploy their nearly 70 Centurion tanks in prepared battle positions. Nafshi was at Kuneitra when the order came to deploy his platoons and move his headquarters somewhere safer. He immediately ordered his troops to leave the town, and the tanks to advance while the soft vehicles fell back. Erez's 53rd Battalion was moved to the southern Golan. One of Nafshi's platoons of three tanks was near the Wassett crossroads when Syrian jets attacked Tel Abu Nida. When the jets departed, the crews began moving to the bunker line. After one kilometre, they came under large-calibre artillery fire. Before 14:00, Nafshi reported to his brigade headquarters that his battalion was ready for combat and was manning the Booster Ridge.
The Syrian 85th Infantry Brigade assault column reached the Israeli anti-tank ditch before its officers noticed that the engineers were not in the vanguard. They decided to dismount tank crewmen and mechanized infantrymen and rush them on foot to improvise crossings. This halted the attack in full Israeli view and exposed the men to Israeli fire. Nafshi ordered his men to destroy the bridging tanks. During the afternoon the Israelis destroyed most of the Syrian bridging tanks within sight, putting them out of action with shots fired at a range of 1.8 km (2,000 yd). Only two of the bridging tanks managed to reach the anti-tank ditch north of A3. The Syrians threw two bridges and a company of ten tanks crossed the ditch. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) was called into action, but many planes were shot down.
The first close combat commenced in the 74th Battalion's northernmost sector, against the Moroccan Brigade of thirty tanks. One Israeli Centurion was hit, and an Israeli platoon that was sent northward to guard the Dan Road was caught between the Moroccans moving against Tel Shaeta and a Syrian battalion closing in from the west. Avner Landau's company, now with seven Centurions, was also threatened and could not help. Nafshi delegated the area north of Hermonit to his deputy, Major Yosef Nissim, and reinforced the sector with Captain Eyal Shaham's company, leaving a company from the Armor School Tank Battalion as a tactical reserve. Every Barak Brigade Centurion in the northern Golan was committed in forty minutes. Nissim ordered Shaham to reinforce the trapped platoon around Tel Shaeta, and ordered his deputy, Lieutenant Asaf Sela, to cover the area south of Tel Shaeta, which could provide easy access to Hermonit, with one platoon. The Moroccans continued to fire at Tel Shaeta but did not advance, and the Syrian battalion was stopped when its leading vehicles were destroyed on the roadway. The Syrian battalion commander decided to move southward and try to penetrate between the Dan Road and Hermonit. He was unaware that he was moving between the forces of Shaham and Sela, who prepared a trap. They opened fire just before 15:00, using superior positions. After a little more than two hours, the Syrians withdrew, leaving behind their bridging tanks, a bulldozer tank, two BRDMs and six main battle tanks. Shaham's company lost two Centurions. Just before nightfall, Shaham noticed three SU-100 gun carriers and a truck close to Nissim's position, from which Nissim could not engage them. Shaham directed Sela, who could not see the Syrians, to intercept them. Sela, accompanied by one other Centurion, opened fire at the rear of the Syrian force and destroyed them at a range of 200 to 300 meters. Two Syrian tanks attempted to cross the open ground to the anti-tank ditch in the unguarded area south of Nissim's sector. The Syrian companies began moving toward that area, hoping to cross just before nightfall. As darkness fell, Nafshi ordered one company to move forward towards the Syrian bridges across the ditch to destroy the tanks that had crossed. The Syrian company that crossed was hit by Landau's tanks and destroyed after half an hour. The bridgehead was sealed.
In late afternoon, Hofi decided that the Barak Brigade's 65 tanks could not contain the Syrian attack alone, and committed the 7th Brigade's 105 Centurions. Believing that the northern sector was more crucial than the southern sector because of the Kuneitra Gap, he ordered Ben Gal to assume command of the area from Bunker 107 northward. The Barak Brigade was now put in charge of the southern sector, already occupied by Erez's 53rd Battalion. The 74th Battalion was transferred to the 7th Brigade, while the newly arrived 82nd Battalion, under the command of Captain Meir "Tiger" Zamir, and two companies from the newly arrived 75th Armored Infantry Battalion from the 7th Brigade to the Barak Brigade. Avigdor Kahalani's 77th Battalion, which was familiar with the terrain after having worked there for a week, was returned to the 7th Brigade. Ben-Gal decided to create a personal reserve by attaching one company of the 82nd Battalion to the 7th Brigade's headquarters. After an hour, the 82nd Battalion was transferred to the Barak Brigade.
By nighttime, Nafshi was placed under the command of the 7th Brigade. The Syrians kept advancing in columns, using coloured lights and flags to distinguish units. Some of them struck Israeli minefields. The Israeli forces did not have adequate optical equipment for night fighting and had to gauge the position of the Syrian forces by their noise and artillery flares. Nafshi's battalion kept changing positions to avoid tank hunters. The fortifications were under heavy attack by tanks and infantry and were calling for help. Nafshi told them to go underground and provided them with supporting artillery fire.
Abrash committed his division's 78th Armored Brigade in the northern sector at 22:00. He was behind schedule, but expected to make up for it if the 78th Brigade could reach and secure the Kuneitra-Mas'ade Road, four and a half kilometres west of its starting line. It was believed that achieving this mission would cause the Israeli defences to collapse. Each of the 82nd Brigade's ninety-five T-55 tanks was equipped with a specially designed infrared nightscope. The night was brightly moonlit. The 82nd Brigade moved up the valley just two and a half kilometres from the Kuneitra-Masada Road. Ben-Gal used his artillery for illumination and ordered his men to remain silent until the Syrians were within range. By 22:00, the Syrian tanks were within 800 meters of the Israeli positions. Both sides lost tanks to the terrain. Captain Yair Swet, a 77th Battalion company commander, was ordered to move to Booster, losing two tanks. One crew managed to extricate its tank and use it to pull the other, but the delay distracted the battalion.