Egypt and Syria strike against an unprepared Israel
Yom Kippur War is nations’ revenge for humiliation in 1967
Saturday, 6 October 1973: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the ,ewish calendar. Across Israel, it was a day of fasting and prayer. The shops had closed. Public transport had been shut
down. Televisions were dark, radios silent.
That afternoon, Israel’s adversaries made their move. Six years after their humiliation in the ,une War of 196 , 'gypt and Syria were itching for revenge. For months they had drawn up their plans, and the Israelis suspected nothing. Even that morning, after a report from a double agent reached ,erusalem, the Israeli defence minister, the veteran Moshe Dayan, was not convinced that the Arabs would dare to attempt such a stunning surprise assault. The chief of general staʘ, David 'la\ar, urged Israeli prime minister Golda Meir to launch a preemptive strike, just in case Egypt and Syria really were going to attack. But she said no.
A few hours later the assault began. At two o’clock, some 200 Egyptian aircraft screamed across the border into Israeli-occupied Sinai, while, hundreds of miles to the north, several Syrian divisions began to move into the Golan *eights. Soon air raid sirens were going oʘ all over Israel. Radios spluttered back into life, broadcasting urgent warnings of imminent attack. Across the country, the word went out for troops to return to their units.
All the time, thousands of Egyptian infantry were moving across the Suez Canal. Within half an hour, they had raised their national ʚag on the eastern bank; within three hours, they had punched five bridgeheads into the Sinai. All that evening, and into the neZt morning, Egyptian tanks and armoured vehicles thundered across 12 makeshift bridges. It was one of the most staggering attacks in history – and, at least at first, a sensational triumph.
In the end, the Israelis managed to push their opponents back. But Middle Eastern politics would never be the same again.