Yom Kippur War

On October 6, 1973, Israel found itself under attack from Egypt and Syria.

Egyptian soldiers raise their country's flag over one of the forts of the Bar Lev Line.

The war will end strangely. On the Egyptian front, the Egyptian army achieved a victory.

But on the Syrian front, the situation was just as bad for Damascus.

Why did the Yom Kippur war break out?:

The October War in Egypt and Syria, which is called the Yom Kippur War in Israel, was a natural result of the Six-Day War 1967.

Israel occupied the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights.

Although the Egyptian president at the time, Anwar Sadat, tried to reach a peaceful solution, the Americans considered that Israel’s overwhelming military superiority would make the situation better with the continued Israeli occupation of Arab lands.

Therefore, Sadat decided to wage war despite the Israeli military superiority..and succeeded in allying himself with Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian president at the time.

The beginning of the Yom Kippur War:

At two o'clock in the afternoon on October 6, 1973, the fighting began.

That day coincided with the tenth day of Ramadan, a month in which Muslims abstain from food and drink from dawn until sunset.

Israeli soldiers were captured by the Egyptian army.

So the date of the war was a big surprise for the Israelis.

What increased the surprise was that day was the same day as Yom Kippur, the holiest of Jewish religious holidays.

The war on the Egyptian front:

The Egyptians started the war with an air strike against Israeli positions, the most important of which were command and control units.

At the same time, 2,000 cannons of various types and calibers were launched and poured their fire on the (Bar Lev Line).

The Bar Lev Line, a complex series of Israeli positions and forts, was the strongest defensive line in the history of warfare.

Before reaching it, the Egyptians had to cross the Suez Canal, which they did successfully with inflatable boats.

One night before the crossing, units of Egyptian "frogs" had blocked the Israeli napalm pipes under the canal's waters.

Egyptian Thunderbolt members also cut the hoses that delivered napalm to the canal.

Egyptian vehicles crossed the Suez Canal via bridges.

When the Israelis tried to ignite the canal with napalm, they found nothing that worked.

After that, the Egyptians had to break through the "earth mound".

The Israelis made this earthen berm at a sharp angle, and made it as high as a building consisting of several floors.

Artillery, or even missiles, did not affect this berm.

It was possible that after hard training, the soldiers would act aggressively and cross the berm.

But the problem was that it was impossible for tanks, armored vehicles, vehicles, and artillery to cross this earthen berm.

If these chariots could not cross, any Egyptian infantry-only attack was doomed to complete failure

Soviet engineers proposed that the Egyptians purchase hundreds of helicopters to transport their forces to Sinai.

The author of the genius proposal, Baqi Zaki Youssef, an Egyptian engineer officer.

The Soviets said that the only solution to bypass the earthen berm built by the Israelis is to hit it with a tactical nuclear bomb... which is not allowed.

Also before the war, Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Minister of Defense, said: (The Egyptians need the American and Soviet engineering corps..And also they will not be able to cross the canal).

But a young Egyptian engineer officer named (Baqi Zaki Youssef) had a genius idea.

He suggested using high-pressure water pumps and directing them to open gaps in the berm. The Egyptians tried the idea in secret before the war, and found it successful.

The Egyptians succeeded in crossing the Suez Canal in what President Sadat later described as: “a miracle on any military scale.”

After that the Israeli forts continued to fall before the Egyptian forces.

The Bar Lev Line fell into the hands of the Egyptians.

As all Israeli counterattacks failed to force the Egyptians to retreat, hundreds of Israeli tanks were crushed in the Sinai desert.

MirageIII ShotDown By Egyptian MiG-21.

Also, as a result of the overwhelming Israeli superiority in the air force, the Egyptians relied on ground air defense.

Dozens of Israeli planes were shot down by Egyptian air defense missiles.. Israel lost, for the first time, air control over the battle skies.

The Yom Kippur War on the Syrian front:

The Syrians started the war with great success.

In their attack, they relied on special forces, which quickly liberated Mount Hermon, one of the most important areas of the Golan.

Also, their armored forces were able to approach the Lake Tiberias area, which threatened the Israeli depth.

However, the Syrians have lost the most important thing in the war, which is the freedom of decision.

Unlike his Egyptian counterpart, Anwar Sadat, who two years ago expelled all Soviet military experts and advisors from his country, Hafez al-Assad retained them.

The intervention of Soviet experts and the necessity of their approval of any decision hindered the Syrian army's movement on the battlefield.

Syria´s president Hafez al-Asad and Defense Minister Mustapha Tlas, during the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, at the Golan front.

Moreover, the Syrian air defense was less effective than its Egyptian counterpart, so the Israeli pilots were more effective on the Syrian front.

A few days after the start of the war, the Syrian front collapsed, and the Israelis advanced quickly until they reached the village of Sa`sa, which is only 20 km away from the capital, Damascus.

But two armored divisions that came from Iraq to support Syria halted the Israeli advance and forced the Israelis to retreat.

American airlift to support Israel:

The Yom Kippur War witnessed blatant American intervention on behalf of Israel.

America shipped the largest military aid in history up to that time to support Israel...by air and sea.

For example, a third of America's reserve of tanks was emptied and given to Israel.

It was also given dozens of warplanes, along with crews of trained pilots, and these planes were equipped with anti-radar missiles in order to destroy Egyptian radar stations.

The young Egyptian engineering officers manning the radar stations developed tactics for turning the radar stations on and off in ways that greatly reduced the efficiency of those missiles.

Also, the American Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” spy plane revealed the existence of a gap between the Egyptian Second and Third Armies.

Israel's defeat at the Defersoir Bulge:

Egyptian soldiers gather Israeli soldiers' bodies killed during the Battle of Ismailia.

General Ariel Sharon will lead an Israeli counterattack on the western bank of the Suez Canal, but in practice it will end in disaster for Israel... something that it is trying to hide until today.

The Israelis do not say that a single Egyptian paratrooper brigade continued to fight three Israeli armored divisions and succeeded in stopping them for two days west of the Suez Canal.

They also do not like to talk about (the Chinese battle), the battle in which an Egyptian officer named Muhammad Hussein Tantawi (who would become the Minister of Defense in Egypt for many years after that) succeeded in inflicting heavy losses on them.

Also, they may not tell you that all of their targets for the attack failed.

They could not occupy Suez or Ismailia. That was their goal in order to barter the Egyptians into withdrawing from Sinai.

But after we told you all that, we will tell you what the British Royal Institute for Strategic Studies, or IISS for short, which is one of the most important and oldest institutes for strategic and military studies in the world said about Israeli attack.

The Institute for Strategic Studies evaluated Sharon's attack as follows: This operation deserves only two points, because Sharon applied the theory of indirect approach, which is a sound military and scientific theory.

As for Sharon's method of applying it, it was not in line with the foundations and principles of fighting, because Sharon did not secure the crossing area with any forces, and he carried out a method similar to a special operation called a force raid, or a military raid, and this is a simple operation that can be carried out by special units, but it is never A major military operation with the goal of capturing a strategically important city like Ismailia.

Israeli M48 tanks, wrecked in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, on the banks of the Suez Canal in 1981، U.S. Navy photo [1] from the USS America (CV-66) 1981 cruise book available at Navysite.de

The most important question from the experts of the Institute of Strategic Studies to General Sharon was that Israel’s losses in the Battle of Defersoir alone are equal to all of Israel’s losses in the 1956 and 1967 wars, and therefore whoever called you the bloody general was not wrong.

In reality, the war ended with the Israeli forces in a trap, and they were besieged west of the canal by Egyptian forces. The US Secretary of State (Henry Kissinger) intervened and met with Sadat and told him frankly that America would not allow the Defersoir breach to be liquidated, otherwise it would enter the war.

The war ended, and years later, with the courageous initiative of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, a peace treaty was signed between Egypt and Israel.

Israel still occupies the Syrian Golan Heights to this day in violation of international law.