Yom Kippur War

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Yom Kippur War/October War Part of the Arab-Israeli conflict Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal on October 7 Date October 6 – October 26, 1973 Location Sinai Peninsula and west bank of Suez Canal, Golan Heights and other regions in southern Syria Result Israeli tactical victory[1] and a UN cease-fire after UNSCR 338, 339 and 340, leading to the Geneva Conference and the Sinai Interim Agreement. Political and strategic gains for Egypt and Israel See long-term effects Belligerents  Egypt  Syria Arab Expeditionary Forces:  Iraq  Jordan  Morocco  Saudi Arabia Libya  Kuwait  Algeria  Sudan Other Expeditionary Forces:  Cuba  North Korea  Israel Commanders and leaders Anwar Sadat Hafez al-Assad Ahmad Ismail Ali Mustafa Tlass Saad El Shazly General Shakkour Abdel Ghani el-Gammasy Hosni Mubarak Naji Jamil Abdul Munim Wassel Abd-Al-Minaam Khaleel Mohammed Aly Fahmy Abu Zikry Omar Abrash   (K.I.A.) Golda Meir Moshe Dayan David Elazar Shmuel Gonen Haim Bar-Lev Israel Tal Yitzhak Hofi Benjamin Peled Benjamin Telem Rafael Eitan Moshe Peled Albert Mandler   (K.I.A.) Abraham Adan Ariel Sharon Kalman Magen Strength Egypt: 300,000 deployed (100,000 crossed), 1,700 tanks (1,020 crossed),[2] 2,400 armored carriers, 1,120 artillery units,[3] 400 combat aircraft, 140 helicopters,[4] 104 Navy vessels, 150 surface to air missile batteries (62 in the front line)[5] Syria: 60,000 deployed (28,000 in initial offensive), 1,200 tanks, 800–900 armored carriers, 600 artillery units,[3][6][7] 350 aircraft, 36 helicopters, 21 Navy vessels, 36 surface to air missile batteries (25 in the front line)[5] Iraq: 30,000 troops, 250–500 tanks,[8][9][10] 500 armored carriers, 200 artillery units,[3] 73 aircraft[11] 415,000 troops, 2,300 tanks, 3,000 armored carriers, 945 artillery units,[3] 440 combat aircraft, 84 helicopters, 160 other kinds of aircraft, 38 Navy vessels[11][12] Casualties and losses 8,000[13]–18,500[14] dead 18,000[13]-35,000[15] wounded 8,372 captured Egyptians 392 captured Syrians 13 captured Iraqis 6 captured Moroccans 2,300[16] tanks destroyed or captured 341[13]–514[17] planes destroyed 19 naval vessels including 10 missile boats sunk[18] 2,521[19]–2,800 dead[13] 7,250[20]-8,800[13] wounded 293 captured 400 tanks destroyed[21] 600 tanks damaged and returned to service[21] 102 planes destroyed[17]

[show] v • d • e Yom Kippur War Badr – Budapest – Lahtzanit – Ofira – 1st Hermon – Marsa Talamat – Valley of Tears – Doogman 5 – Latakia – 2nd Hermon – Baltim – Sinai – Mansoura – Chinese Farm – 3rd Hermon – Suez Nickel Grass (related U.S. operation)

[show] v • d • e Arab–Israeli conflict Jerusalem riots (1920) – Jaffa riots (1921) – Palestine riots (1929) – Arab revolt (1936–1939) – Civil War (1947–1948) – Arab-Israeli War (1948–1949) – Retribution operations (1951-1966) – Suez Crisis (1956) – War over Water (1964–1967) – Six-Day War (1967) – War of Attrition (1967–1970) – Wrath of God (1972–1979) – Yom Kippur War (1973) – South Lebanon conflict (1978) – Lebanon War (1982) – South Lebanon conflict (1982–2000) – First Intifada (1987–1993) – Second Intifada (2000–2005) – Shebaa Farms conflict (2000-2006) – Lebanon War (2006) – Gaza War (2008–2009)

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War (Hebrew: מלחמת יום הכיפורים‎; transliterated: Milẖemet Yom HaKipurim or מלחמת יום כיפור, Milẖemet Yom Kipur; Arabic: حرب أكتوبر‎; transliterated: ħarb Aktoobar or حرب تشرين, ħarb Tishrin), also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 26, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states backing Egypt and Syria. The war began with a joint surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which coincided with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Egypt and Syria crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights respectively, which had been captured and occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War. The conflict had all the elements of a severe international crisis, and ended with a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union,^[22] both of whom initiated massive resupply efforts to their allies during the war.
The war began with a massive and successful Egyptian attack across the heavily-fortified Suez Canal during the first three days, after which they dug in, settling into a stalemate. In the north, the Syrians attacked the Golan Heights at the same time and initially made threatening gains against the greatly outnumbered defenders, but their momentum waned. Within a week, Israel recovered and launched a four-day counter-offensive, driving deep into Syria itself. To relieve this pressure, the Egyptians went back on the offensive, but were decisively defeated; the Israelis then counterattacked at the seam between two Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal, and advanced southward and westward in over a week of heavy fighting. Israel encircled elements of Egypt's Third Army after an agreed United Nations ceasefire resolution. This initially prompted tension between the superpowers, but a ceasefire was imposed cooperatively on October 25 to end the war. By the end of the fighting, Israeli forces were 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Damascus and 101 kilometres (63 mi) from Cairo.
The war had far-reaching implications. The Arab World, which had been humiliated by the lopsided rout of the Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian alliance in the Six-Day War, felt psychologically vindicated by successes early in the conflict. In Israel, despite impressive operational and tactical achievements on the battlefield, the war effectively ended its sense of invincibility and complacency. The war also challenged many American assumptions; the United States initiated new efforts at mediation and peacemaking. These changes paved the way for the subsequent peace process. The Camp David Accords that followed led to the return of the Sinai to Egypt and normalized relations—the first peaceful recognition of Israel by an Arab country. Egypt continued its drift away from the Soviet Union and left the Soviet sphere of influence entirely.

Contents [show] 1 Background 1.1 Casus belli 1.2 Events leading up to the war 1.3 Lead-up to the surprise attack 1.4 Lack of an Israeli pre-emptive attack 2 Combat operations 2.1 In the Sinai 2.1.1 Egyptian attack 2.1.2 Israeli counter-attack 2.1.3 Israeli breakthrough 2.2 On the Golan Heights 2.2.1 Syrian attack 2.2.2 Israeli advance 2.3 At sea 2.4 Participation by other states 2.4.1 Aid to Egypt and Syria 2.4.2 Aid to Israel 2.5 Weapons 3 Cease-fire and immediate aftermath 3.1 Egypt's trapped Third Army 3.2 Nuclear alert 3.3 Northern front de-escalation 3.4 Post-ceasefire negotiations 4 Casualties 5 Long-term effects 5.1 Oil embargo 5.2 Sadat's new public image 5.3 Response in Israel 5.4 Response in Egypt and Syria 5.5 Camp David Accords 5.6 Commemorations 6 References 6.1 Notes 6.2 Bibliography 7 External links

[edit] Background

[edit] Casus belli

The war was part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, an ongoing dispute which included many battles and wars since 1948, when the state of Israel was formed. During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israelis captured Egypt's Sinai Peninsula all the way up to the Suez Canal, which had become the cease-fire line, and roughly half of Syria's Golan Heights.
According to Chaim Herzog:

On June 19, 1967, the National Unity Government of Israel voted unanimously to return the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria in return for peace agreements. The Golan would have to be demilitarized and special arrangement would be negotiated for the Straits of Tiran. The government also resolved to open negotiations with King Hussein of Jordan regarding the Eastern border.^[23]

The Israeli decision was to be conveyed to the Arab states by the U.S. government. The U.S. was informed of the decision, but not that it was to transmit it. There is no evidence of it was conveyed to Egypt or Syria. The decision was kept a closely guarded secret within Israeli government circles and the offer was withdrawn in October 1967.^[24]
Egypt and Syria both desired a return of the land lost in the Six-Day War. In September 1967, the Khartoum Arab Summit issued the "three no's", resolving that there would be "no peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel". In the years following the war, Israel erected lines of fortification in both the Sinai and the Golan Heights. In 1971, Israel spent $500 million fortifying its positions on the Suez Canal, a chain of fortifications and gigantic earthworks known as the Bar Lev Line, named after Israeli General Chaim Bar-Lev.
President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt died in September 1970. He was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, who resolved to win back the lost territory. In 1971, Sadat, in response to an initiative by UN intermediary Gunnar Jarring, declared that if Israel committed itself to "withdrawal of its armed forces from Sinai and the Gaza Strip" and to implementation of other provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 242 as requested by Jarring, Egypt would then "be ready to enter into a peace agreement with Israel." Israel responded that it would not withdraw to the pre-June 5, 1967 lines.^[25]
Sadat hoped that by inflicting even a limited defeat on the Israelis, the status quo could be altered. Hafiz al-Assad, the leader of Syria, had a different view. He had little interest in negotiation and felt the retaking of the Golan Heights would be a purely military option. After the Six-Day War, Assad had launched a massive military buildup and hoped to make Syria the dominant military power of the Arab states. With the aid of Egypt, Assad felt that his new army could win convincingly against Israel and thus secure Syria's role in the region. Assad only saw negotiations beginning once the Golan Heights had been retaken by force, which would induce Israel to give up the West Bank and Gaza, and make other concessions.
Sadat also had important domestic concerns in wanting war. "The three years since Sadat had taken office... were the most demoralized in Egyptian history... A desiccated economy added to the nation's despondency. War was a desperate option."^[26] In his biography of Sadat, Raphael Israeli argued that Sadat felt the root of the problem was in the great shame over the Six-Day War, and before any reforms could be introduced he felt that shame had to be overcome. Egypt's economy was in shambles, but Sadat knew that the deep reforms that he felt were needed would be deeply unpopular among parts of the population. A military victory would give him the popularity he needed to make changes. A portion of the Egyptian population, most prominently university students who launched wide protests, strongly desired a war to reclaim the Sinai and was highly upset that Sadat had not launched one in his first three years in office.
The other Arab states showed much more reluctance to fully commit to a new war. King Hussein of Jordan feared another major loss of territory as had occurred in the Six-Day War, in which Jordan had been halved in population. Sadat was also backing the claim of the PLO to the West Bank and Gaza and in the event of a victory promised Yasser Arafat that he would be given control of them. Hussein still saw the West Bank as part of Jordan and wanted it restored to his kingdom. Moreover, during the Black September crisis of 1970, a near civil war had broken out between the PLO and the Jordanian government. In that war, Syria had intervened militarily on the side of the PLO, estranging Hussein.
Iraq and Syria also had strained relations, and the Iraqis refused to join the initial offensive. Lebanon, which shared a border with Israel, was not expected to join the Arab war effort because of its small army and already evident instability. The months before the war saw Sadat engage in a diplomatic offensive to try to win support for the war. By the fall of 1973, he claimed the backing of more than a hundred states. These were most of the countries of the Arab League, Non-Aligned Movement, and Organization of African Unity. Sadat had also worked to curry favour in Europe and had some success before the war. Britain and France for the first time sided with the Arab powers against Israel on the United Nations Security Council.

[edit] Events leading up to the war

Sadat publicly stated in 1972 that Egypt was committed to going to war with Israel, and that they were prepared to "sacrifice one million Egyptian soldiers." From the end of 1972, Egypt began a concentrated effort to build up its forces, receiving MiG-21 jet fighters, SA-2, SA-3, SA-6 and SA-7 antiaircraft missiles, T-55 and T-62 tanks, RPG-7 antitank weapons, and the AT-3 Sagger anti-tank guided missile from the Soviet Union and improving its military tactics, based on Soviet battlefield doctrines. Political generals, who had in large part been responsible for the rout in 1967, were replaced with competent ones.^[27]
The role of the superpowers, too, was a major factor in the outcome of the two wars. The policy of the Soviet Union was one of the causes of Egypt's military weakness. President Nasser was only able to obtain the material for an anti-aircraft missile defense wall after visiting Moscow and pleading with Kremlin leaders. He said that if supplies were not given, he would have to return to Egypt and tell the Egyptian people Moscow had abandoned them, and then relinquish power to one of his peers who would be able to deal with the Americans. The Americans would then have the upper hand in the region, which Moscow could not permit.
One of Egypt's undeclared objectives of the War of Attrition was to force the Soviet Union to supply Egypt with more advanced arms and war materiel. Egypt felt the only way to convince the Soviet leaders of the deficiencies of most of the aircraft and air defense weaponry supplied to Egypt following 1967 was to put the Soviet weapons to the test against the advanced weaponry the United States had supplied to Israel.
Nasser's policy following the 1967 defeat conflicted with that of the Soviet Union. The Soviets sought to avoid a new conflagration between the Arabs and Israelis so as not to be drawn into a confrontation with the United States. The reality of the situation became apparent when the superpowers met in Oslo and agreed to maintain the status quo. This was unacceptable to Egyptian leaders, and when it was discovered that the Egyptian preparations for crossing the canal were being leaked, it became imperative to expel the Soviets from Egypt. In July 1972, Sadat expelled almost all of the 20,000 Soviet military advisers in the country and reoriented the country's foreign policy to be more favorable to the United States. The Syrians remained close to the Soviet Union.
The Soviets thought little of Sadat's chances in any war. They warned that any attempt to cross the heavily-fortified Suez Canal would incur massive losses. Both the Soviets and the Americans were then pursuing détente, and had no interest in seeing the Middle East destabilized. In a June 1973 meeting with U.S. President Richard Nixon, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had proposed Israel pull back to its 1967 border. Brezhnev said that if Israel did not, "we will have difficulty keeping the military situation from flaring up"—an indication that the Soviet Union had been unable to restrain Sadat's plans.^[28]
In an interview published in Newsweek (April 9, 1973), President Sadat again threatened war with Israel. Several times during 1973, Arab forces conducted large-scale exercises that put the Israeli military on the highest level of alert, only to be recalled a few days later. The Israeli leadership already believed that if an attack took place, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) could repel it.
Almost a full year before the war, in an October 24, 1972 meeting with his Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Sadat declared his intention to go to war with Israel even without proper Soviet support.^[29] Planning had begun in 1971 and was conducted in absolute secrecy—even the upper-echelon commanders were not told of war plans until less than a week prior to the attack, and the soldiers were not told until a few hours beforehand. The plan to attack Israel in concert with Syria was code-named Operation Badr (Arabic for "full moon"), after the Battle of Badr, in which Muslims under Muhammad defeated the Quraish tribe of Mecca.