Six-Day War

For other uses, see Six Day War (disambiguation).

Six-Day War
Part of the Arab–Israeli conflict

A map of military movements during the conflict. Israel proper is shown in royal blue and territories occupied by Israel are shown in various shades of green
Date5–10 June 1967
(6 days)
Location
Middle East
Result Israeli victory
Territorial
changes

Israel occupies a total of 70,000 km2 (27,000 sq mi) of territory:[3]

Belligerents
 Israel Egypt
 Syria
 Jordan
Iraq[1]
Minor involvement:
 Lebanon[2]
Commanders and leaders
Levi Eshkol
Moshe Dayan
Yitzhak Rabin
David Elazar
Uzi Narkiss
Yeshayahu Gavish
Israel Tal
Mordechai Hod
Shlomo Erell
Aharon Yariv
Ezer Weizman
Rehavam Ze'evi		 Gamal Abdel Nasser
Abdel Hakim Amer
Mohamed Fawzi
Abdul Munim Riad
Mohamed Mahmoud
Nureddin al-Atassi
Hafez al-Assad
Ahmed Suidani
Hussein of Jordan
Zaid ibn Shaker
Asad Ghanma
Abdul Rahman Arif
Strength
Israel:
264,000 total[6]
250[7]–300 combat aircraft[8]
800 tanks[9]		 Egypt:
160,000 total[10]
100,000 deployed[10]
420 aircraft[11][12]
900–950 tanks[10]
Syria:
75,000 troops[13]
Jordan:
55,000 total[14]
45,000 deployed[15]
270 tanks[15]
Iraq:
100 tanks[15]
Lebanon:
2 combat aircraft[2]
Total:
465,000 total[16]
800 aircraft[16]
2,504 tanks[9]
Casualties and losses
Israel:
776–983 killed[17][18]
4,517 wounded
15 captured[17]
400 tanks destroyed[19]
46 aircraft destroyed

Egypt:
9,800–15,000 killed or missing[20][21]
4,338 captured[22]
Syria:
1,000–2,500 killed[23][24][25]
367–591 captured
Jordan:
696–700 killed[17][26][27][28]
2,500 wounded[17]
533 captured[22]
Lebanon:
1 aircraft lost[2]

Hundreds of tanks destroyed
452+ aircraft destroyed[citation needed]
15 UN peacekeepers killed (14 Indian, 1 Brazilian)[29]
20 Israeli civilians killed and 1,000+ Israeli civilians injured in Jerusalem[30]
34 US Navy, Marine, and NSA personnel killed[31][32]
17 Soviet Marines killed (allegedly)[33]
413,000 Palestinians displaced[34]

The Six-Day War,[a] also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10 June 1967.

Military hostilities broke out amid poor relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which had been observing the 1949 Armistice Agreements signed at the end of the First Arab–Israeli War. In 1956, regional tensions over the Straits of Tiran (giving access to Eilat, a port on the southeast tip of Israel) escalated in what became known as the Suez Crisis, when Israel invaded Egypt over the Egyptian closure of maritime passageways to Israeli shipping, ultimately resulting in the re-opening of the Straits of Tiran to Israel as well as the deployment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) along the Egypt–Israel border.[35] In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel[36] and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.[37][29]

On 5 June 1967, as the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities.[29] Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula.[38] Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt just a week before the war began, did not take on an all-out offensive role against Israel, but launched attacks against Israeli forces to slow Israel's advance.[39] On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.[40]

Egypt and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire on 8 June, and Syria on 9 June, and it was signed with Israel on 11 June. The Six-Day War resulted in more than 15,000 Arab fatalities, while Israel suffered fewer than 1,000. Alongside the combatant casualties were the deaths of 20 Israeli civilians killed in Arab forces air strikes on Jerusalem, 15 UN peacekeepers killed by Israeli strikes in the Sinai at the outset of the war, and 34 US personnel killed in the USS Liberty incident in which Israeli air forces struck a United States Navy technical research ship.

At the time of the cessation of hostilities, Israel had occupied the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. The displacement of civilian populations as a result of the Six-Day War would have long-term consequences, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the West Bank[41] and the Golan Heights, respectively.[42] Nasser resigned in shame after Israel's victory, but was later reinstated following a series of protests across Egypt. In the aftermath of the conflict, Egypt closed the Suez Canal until 1975.[43]

  1. ^ Krauthammer, Charles (18 May 2007). "Prelude to the Six Days". The Washington Post. p. A23. ISSN 0740-5421. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  2. ^ a b c Oren (2002), p. 237.
  3. ^ Arnold, Guy (2016). Wars in the Third World Since 1945. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 299. ISBN 9781474291019.
  4. ^ "Milestones: 1961–1968". Office of the Historian. Archived from the original on 23 October 2018. Retrieved 30 November 2018. Between June 5 and June 10, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights
  5. ^ Weill, Sharon (2007). "The judicial arm of the occupation: the Israeli military courts in the occupied territories". International Review of the Red Cross. 89 (866): 401. doi:10.1017/s1816383107001142. ISSN 1816-3831. S2CID 55988443. On 7 June 1967, the day the occupation started, Military Proclamation No. 2 was issued, endowing the area commander with full legislative, executive, and judicial authorities over the West Bank and declaring that the law in force prior to the occupation remained in force as long as it did not contradict new military orders.
  6. ^ Stone (2004), p. 217.
  7. ^ Oren (2002), p. 171.
  8. ^ Tucker (2015), pp. 540–541.
  9. ^ a b Tucker (2004), p. 176.
  10. ^ a b c Pollack (2004), p. 59.
  11. ^ Oren (2002), p. 176.
  12. ^ Morris (2001), p. 318.
  13. ^ Ehteshami & Hinnebusch (1997), p. 76.
  14. ^ Mutawi (2002), p. 42.
  15. ^ a b c Segev (1967), pp. 82, 175–191.
  16. ^ a b Herzog, Chaim (1 January 1984). The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East from the War of Independence through Lebanon (Revised ed.). Vintage Books. p. 149. ISBN 978-0394717463.
  17. ^ a b c d Gawrych (2000), p. 3.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Zaloga, Steven (1981). Armour of the Middle East Wars 1948–78 (Vanguard). Osprey Publishing.
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gammasy p.79 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Herzog (1982), p. 165.
  22. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Israel Ministry 2004 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Tucker (2010), p. 1198.
  24. ^ Woolf, Alex (2012). Arab–Israeli War Since 1948. Heinemann-Raintree. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-4329-6004-9.
  25. ^ Sachar (2013), p. [1][page needed]
  26. ^ Dunstan (2013a), p. [2]
  27. ^ Warfare since the Second World War, By Klaus Jürgen Gantzel, Torsten Schwinghammer, p. 253
  28. ^ Guy Arnold (1991) Wars in the Third World since 1945.[page needed][full citation needed]
  29. ^ a b c "UNEF I withdrawal (16 May - 17 June 1967) - SecGen report, addenda, corrigendum". Question of Palestine. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2022.
  30. ^ Oren (2002), p. 187: Over a thousand civilians were wounded, 150 seriously, 20 of them died.
  31. ^ Gerhard, William D.; Millington, Henry W. (1981). "Attack on a SIGINT Collector, the USS Liberty" (PDF). NSA History Report, U.S. Cryptologic History series. National Security Agency. partially declassified 1999, 2003.
  32. ^ Both USA and Israel officially attributed the USS Liberty incident as being due to mistaken identification.
  33. ^ Cite error: The named reference ginor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  34. ^ Jeremy Bowen (2003). Six Days: How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East. Simon and Schuster, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4711-1475-5. UNRWA put the figure at 413,000
  35. ^ Major General Indar Jit Rikhye (28 October 2013). The Sinai Blunder: Withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force Leading... Taylor & Francis. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-1-136-27985-0.
  36. ^ Quigley (2013), p. 32.
  37. ^ Mendoza, Terry; Hart, Rona; Herlitz, Lewis; Stone, John; Oboler, Andre (2007). "Six Day War Comprehensive Timeline". sixdaywar. Archived from the original on 18 May 2007. Retrieved 22 January 2021. 2nd-5th author details from Six Day War, 40th anniversary, June 1, 2007, at oboler.com/six-day-war-40th-anniversary/{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  38. ^ Cite error: The named reference BBC Panorama was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  39. ^ Mutawi (2002), p. 183: "It is clear that King Hussein joined forces with Egypt in the knowledge that there was no possibility of overrunning Israel. Instead, he sought to preserve the status quo. He believed that he could not stand aside at a time when Arab co-operation and solidarity were vital and he was convinced that any Arab confrontation with Israel would be greatly enhanced if the Arabs fought as a unified body. The plan of action devised at his meeting with Nasser in Cairo on 30 May was established on this basis. It was envisaged that Jordan would not take an offensive role but would tie down a proportion of Israel's forces and so prevent it from using its full weight against Egypt and Syria. By forcing Israel to fight a war on three fronts simultaneously King Hussein believed that the Arabs stood a chance of preventing it from making any territorial gains while allowing the Arabs a chance of gaining a political victory, which may, eventually, lead to peace. King Hussein was also convinced that even if Jordan did not participate in the war Israel would take the opportunity to seize the West Bank once it had dealt with Syria and Egypt. He decided that for this reason, the wisest course of action was to bring Jordan into the total Arab effort. This would provide his army with two elements that were essential for its efficient operation – additional troops and air cover. When King Hussein met Nasser in Cairo it was agreed that these requirements would be met."
  40. ^ Dunstan (2013), p. 65.
  41. ^ Bowker (2003), p. 81.
  42. ^ McDowall (1991), p. 84: 116,000 had fled from the Golan further into Syria, ...
  43. ^ "Suez Canal". 30 March 2021. Archived from the original on 8 September 2023. Retrieved 27 August 2022.


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