Yom Kippur War

The Yom Kippur War, known in the Arab world as the October or Ramadan War, was the fourth major Arab–Israeli war. It began on 6 October 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack on Israeli positions in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, and ended under a United Nations ceasefire on 25 October. It drew the superpowers into a tense confrontation, set off a global oil crisis and opened the way to Egyptian–Israeli peace.

Israel had taken Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in the Six-Day War of 1967, together with the Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip, about half of Syria's Golan Heights and the West Bank. Egypt's president Anwar Sadat was determined to regain Sinai and prepared for a limited war: a foothold on the east bank of the Suez Canal that would force negotiations. Egypt rearmed with Soviet weapons, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. Despite many warnings in September 1973, including one from King Hussein of Jordan, Israeli intelligence judged that the Arabs would not attack and dismissed troop movements as exercises. Only on the morning of the attack did the government of Golda Meir order a large call-up of reserves, and it decided against a pre-emptive strike.

The attack came on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, which that year fell on the tenth day of Ramadan. Some 100,000 Egyptian troops with around 1,350 tanks crossed the canal and overran most of the fortified Bar Lev Line, held by only about 450 men. Israeli armoured counter-attacks over the next days were broken up, largely by infantry armed with portable anti-tank missiles, while the missile umbrella on the west bank limited Israeli air power. On the Golan, Syrian forces of about 28,000 troops and 800 tanks initially faced some 180 Israeli tanks and broke through in the south before Israeli reserves arrived.

Within a few days Israel had pushed most of the Syrian forces back to the prewar ceasefire line and then advanced into Syria, coming close enough to shell the outskirts of Damascus. On 14 October Egypt attacked further into Sinai to relieve the pressure on Syria, but the advance beyond its missile cover failed with heavy tank losses. The same day, a large American airlift began replacing Israel's losses, matching a Soviet airlift to Egypt and Syria. From 15 October Israeli forces spearheaded by Ariel Sharon's division broke through and crossed the canal north of the Great Bitter Lake, while days of close fighting raged at the so-called Chinese Farm. They then pushed south to cut off the Egyptian Third Army.

A UN ceasefire on 22 October broke down almost at once, and Israeli forces completed the encirclement of the Third Army, though they failed to take the city of Suez. When the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev warned that the Soviet Union might act alone to enforce the ceasefire, American officials, with Richard Nixon absorbed by the Watergate scandal, raised their forces' alert level to DEFCON 3. Egypt withdrew its request for Soviet help, and a further ceasefire on 25 October held. Arab oil producers had meanwhile cut output and imposed an embargo on the United States and other supporters of Israel, triggering the 1973 oil crisis.

Israel lost between about 2,500 and 2,800 soldiers killed. Egypt and Syria never published official figures, and estimates of Arab dead range from about 8,000 to 18,500.

Historians differ over who won: some see an Israeli victory, others an Egyptian one, others a military stalemate. The early Arab successes restored confidence after 1967, while in Israel the surprise caused deep shock; public anger led to the Agranat Commission and to Meir's resignation in April 1974. Shuttle diplomacy by the American secretary of state Henry Kissinger produced disengagement agreements with Egypt in January 1974 and with Syria in May 1974, and the Sinai II agreement in 1975. These steps led to the Camp David Accords of 1978 and the 1979 peace treaty, under which Israel returned all of Sinai to Egypt, its last troops leaving on 26 April 1982.

Our 1960 map shows Israel, Egypt and Syria before the 1967 war, and our 1985 map the region after Sinai's return, with the Golan Heights still held by Israel.