The Six-Day War was fought from 5 to 10 June 1967 between Israel and the neighbouring states of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Israel won a rapid victory and took control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The war reshaped the map of the Middle East and left questions of occupied territory that remain unresolved.
Background
Since the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, Israel and its Arab neighbours had remained formally at war. Through the 1960s there were frequent clashes on the Syrian border, disputes over the waters of the Jordan, and raids by Palestinian guerrillas, followed by Israeli reprisals. After the Suez Crisis of 1956, a United Nations force had been stationed on the Egyptian side of the border with Israel.
The crisis of May 1967
In mid-May 1967, partly in response to Soviet reports, later shown to be false, of Israeli troops massing against Syria, Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser moved large forces into Sinai and asked the UN force to leave. He then announced the closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, a step Israel had long said it would treat as a cause for war. At the end of May, Egypt and Jordan signed a defence pact, and Iraqi forces moved towards Jordan. Israel formed a national unity government and, on 4 June, decided to strike first.
The war
On the morning of 5 June the Israeli air force attacked Egyptian airfields and destroyed most of Egypt's air force on the ground, then struck the air forces of Jordan, Syria and Iraq. With control of the air, Israeli ground forces broke through in Sinai and reached the Suez Canal within days. Jordan opened fire from Jerusalem and the West Bank; after heavy fighting, Israeli troops captured the Old City of Jerusalem on 7 June and the rest of the West Bank. Egypt and Jordan accepted ceasefires, and on 9 and 10 June Israel attacked and took the Golan Heights from Syria before a final ceasefire took effect.
Losses
Israel lost somewhere between about 780 and 980 soldiers. Arab losses were much heavier: estimates of Egyptian dead and missing range from about 10,000 to 15,000, with roughly 700 Jordanian and between 1,000 and 2,500 Syrian dead. Some 300,000 Palestinians, by common estimates, fled or were displaced from the West Bank and Gaza, many of them refugees for the second time, and around 100,000 Syrians left the Golan.
Aftermath
In November 1967 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the conflict and for recognition of every state's right to live in peace within secure borders. Its wording became the basis of later peace efforts. The Arab League summit at Khartoum in September had rejected peace, recognition or negotiation with Israel. Israel extended its law to East Jerusalem soon after the war and later to the Golan Heights, steps not recognised by most of the world, and began building settlements in the occupied territories. Egypt and Syria attacked in 1973 to regain lost ground, and Sinai was returned to Egypt in 1982 under the peace treaty of 1979.
On our maps
In pictures
2 images · scroll →From the atlas
Six-Day War in time and on the map
Six-Day War took place in 1967. The nearest maps from before and after are 1960 and 1985; compare them side by side.
Living through it, among others on this site: Anwar Sadat (1918–1981), Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006), Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970), Che Guevara (1928–1967), Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), Desmond Tutu (1931–2021) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969).
Other events of the same years: Satsuma Rebellion (1877–2005), Nahda (1900–2000), Great Migration (1916–1970), Cold War (1945–1991), Decolonisation of Africa (1950–1975), Civil rights movement (1954–1968), Vietnam War (1955–1975), Dirty War (1955–1989), Space Race (1957–1975) and The Troubles (1960–1998).
Next to it in time on this site: before, Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970); after, Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (1968) and May 68 (1968).
Quick answers
- When did Six-Day War happen?
- In 1967.
- Where did Six-Day War take place?
- Middle East.
- How did the map change?
- Compare the atlas’s maps of 1960 and 1985 side by side.