“Damascus is an hour away by car and Cairo is two hours away,” was a common saying among the Israeli military fifty years ago. The phrase exemplified the feeling of superiority that had been installed in the Jewish state after the resounding victory over its Arab neighbors in the Six Day War (1967) that led it to occupy the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the peninsula. of Sinai.
The Israelis relied on their powerful army and effective intelligence services to counter any threat from their neighbors. This complacency fueled the mistakes that would allow the Arabs to make a surprise attack on the Sinai and Golan in 1973 in the Yom Kippur (or Ramadan, as it is known in the Arab world) war.
For their part, the Arab countries had been left wanting revenge after the defeat in the Six Day War. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Naser tried to recover the Sinai by harassing Israeli forces with the War of Attrition (1968-1970). It was a conflict that was characterized by a constant succession of aerial combats, commando raids and artillery duels.
But there was no Hebrew attrition; In fact, the material and human casualties of the Egyptians were much greater. Nasser's death on September 28, 1970 brought a strategic shift in Cairo at the hands of the new president, Anwar el Sadat, a more pragmatic man and aware of the limitations of his army in fighting the Israelis.
Sadat tried to obtain the return of Sinai through diplomatic channels. He attempted to reach out to the US and get Israel to agree to return the territory in exchange for recognition by Cairo. But Prime Minister Golda Meir's government was comfortable with its military advantage and the security it gained from dominating the western bank of the Suez Canal, and did not want to make any concessions.
The refusal convinced the Egyptian Rais that he had to resort to military means. Furthermore, its population was favorable to the armed route to recover the Sinai. So, in 1972, he began to prepare for war thanks to the help of the USSR. Far from the rhetoric of Naser – who had assured that his main objective was to “destroy Israel” –, Sadat sought an objective more in line with his real military capabilities: a limited but successful operation to force negotiations with Tel Aviv. .
This limited operation was the occupation of the eastern bank of the strategic Suez Canal. Sadat did not want to embark on the military adventure alone. He found support from Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who also wanted to recapture the Golan Heights, and soon there was agreement to coordinate efforts. They also obtained the support of other Arab countries, such as Morocco, Iraq and Libya.
One problem for Cairo was that the USSR did not welcome a war in the Middle East in the early 1970s. So Sadat expelled Soviet advisers in 1972. By then, the two superpowers had begun a rapprochement and were not interested in a major conflict in the region. Of course, when hostilities broke out in October 1973, Washington and Moscow sent abundant military aid to prevent the defeat of their respective allies.
Despite the expulsion of Soviet advisors, the assistance and training that the Egyptian army had received had made it a more effective fighting force than the one that had fought in 1967. Despite the improvements, crossing the Suez Canal still represented quite a challenge.
The crossing of the canal was codenamed Operation Badr and was set for October 6, 1973. The day corresponded to the tenth day of Ramadan, when the prophet Muhammad fought the battle of the same name, one of his first victories and which allowed the expansion of Islam. The Egyptian assault would also coincide with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and many Hebrew soldiers would be on leave.
The surprise factor would be essential for the success of Operation Badr. In this sense, the Arab strategists were skillful, making it so that the Israelis couldn't see the forest for the trees. The climate of continuous military tension in Suez since 1967 meant that the troop concentrations were not suspicious. To complete the masquerade, the Egyptian army moved the equipment necessary for the canal crossing at night.
Apart from this, Egypt faced a series of defenses. First, the Arab troops had to overcome a sand wall that extended along the 160 kilometers of the eastern bank of the canal to prevent the passage of vehicles. They should then assault the fortifications of the Bar-Lev line (the name referred to the general responsible for the defense of Sinai).
Faced with a possible attack, the Israelis were confident that the Egyptian bulldozers would take many hours to open breaches in their wall, which would give them time to counterattack at will. But Sadat's engineers designed an original system of high-pressure hoses that allowed portions of the wall to be dismantled in record time.
To successfully assault the Bar-Lev line, it was also expected to achieve the effect of surprise, and, when attacking in the middle of the Yom Kippur festival, many positions would be defended by fewer troops than usual.
During the month of September 1973, Aman, Israeli military intelligence, dismissed eleven warnings of a possible attack, believing that its enemies were not prepared for war. At the beginning of October, the signals did not stop, and on the night of the 5th an emergency meeting was called between Meir, Moshe Dayan, Minister of Defense, and David Elazar, Chief of the General Staff.
Dayan still believed that the Arabs were not going to attack. Elazar had an opposite opinion, he asked to suspend the permits for Yom Kippur, decree a mobilization and bombardment with aviation. The prime minister was closer to the positions of her chief of staff, but had to look for a compromise solution, since she was aware of a warning from the US: Washington would not support Israel if it was the aggressor in a new war. against their Arab neighbors. So Meir authorized the mobilization of more troops for the defense of the Sinai and the Golan, but he did not want there to be preventive air strikes.
In any case, Israeli preparations were late. Aman estimated that the Egyptian attack would occur at six in the afternoon on October 6, but the crossing of the canal began four hours earlier, achieving the desired surprise effect. At the same time, the Syrians also launched their own offensive on the Golan Heights. The Yom Kippur War had begun.
The Egyptian offensive began with the attack of 200 aircraft against enemy bases, radars and anti-aircraft defenses. In addition, 2,000 artillery pieces relentlessly punished the Bar-Lev line for almost an hour. In the first minute of this bombardment alone, 10,500 shells fell. To counter the feared Israeli aviation, a large number of surface-to-air missiles were deployed that would cover both banks of the canal.
The Suez crossing was completed with an efficiency that surprised Sadat's own officers. The engineers managed to open 60 breaches and the infantry took positions. The Egyptian troops had abundant portable anti-tank weapons – the Soviet AT-3 Sagger missiles stood out – which caused heavy casualties to the Israeli tanks when they attempted uncoordinated counterattacks.
Only ninety minutes after beginning the assault on the canal, Egyptian troops captured the first position on the Bar-Lev line. Two and a half hours since the start of Operation Badr, 32,000 Egyptian soldiers had completed the crossing along with 100 tanks. Non-amphibious vehicles could cross thanks to the 12 bridges that were laid. Sadat's navy also successfully blockaded the Red Sea.
By October 7, after 18 hours of Operation Badr, the Egyptians had placed 90,000 men and 850 tanks on the eastern bank of the canal. Its five bridgeheads extended between 6 and 9 kilometers. They maintained the siege of some positions of the Bar-Lev line (others were evacuated by the Israelis), but did not penetrate further into the Sinai, preferring to remain on the defensive under the cover of their anti-aircraft missiles on the other side of Suez.
Arab losses had been minimal at Suez – 280 soldiers killed and 20 tanks destroyed. The only setbacks had been the failed amphibious assault across the Great Bitter Lake – here the Israeli counterattack was more successful – and the failure of commandos inserted by helicopters to block some passes in the Sinai through which Israeli reserves could cross.
From the Hebrew point of view, General Elazar wanted to know the enemy forces well before launching a major counterattack. Many of his officers demanded a more decisive response. Among them stood out the then General Ariel Sharon, in charge of the 143rd Armored Division, who would be one of the Israeli heroes of this war.
But the Israelis still relied too much on the offensive capacity of their tanks, without taking into account the abilities that their enemies had already demonstrated. On October 8 there was an important counterattack by Hebrew armored units that was repelled by ambushes by the Egyptian infantry, supported by their tanks and artillery.
In the first 48 hours of fighting on and around the Bar-Lev Line, Hebrew forces lost 950 soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles in failed counterattacks.
Next, the Sinai front experienced an operational pause on the part of both sides. The Egyptians consolidated the ground they had gained, while the Israelis preferred to focus on the Golan, where they feared that Syrian troops would break the front and advance into Israeli national territory.
After a week of fighting, the Israelis reversed the situation in the Golan and reached 40 kilometers from Damascus. The Syrian government asked Sadat for help in diverting Jewish attention with an attack in the Sinai. The Egyptian leader accepted and launched a new offensive on October 14, despite the fact that many of his generals were against it.
This time, the Egyptians could not repeat the success of Operation Badr. The Israelis had learned from their mistakes, and the Arab forces were severely punished – with armor loss ratios of 13 to 1. In fact, Hebrew troops under Sharon made their own crossing of the canal and threatened the rear of Sadat's troops.
The Yom Kippur War ended on October 25. At first glance, Israel was the winner, but the difficulties experienced showed it that it could not rely solely on military means for its security. So he began negotiations with Egypt (more receptive than Syria to a diplomatic solution). These talks culminated in the Camp David agreements (September 17, 1978), a peace treaty between both countries that allowed Cairo to recover the Sinai Peninsula.
Politics gave Sadat the victory that he had not been able to achieve with weapons. But he couldn't enjoy it for long. His rapprochement with the Jewish enemy was the reason why a group of Islamist terrorists murdered him on October 6, 1981, during a parade organized to commemorate the eighth anniversary of Operation Badr.
