Reprisal operations

Reprisal operations
Part of the Palestinian Fedayeen insurgency (during the Arab–Israeli conflict)

Israeli raid on Qalqilya police station in October 1956
Date1950s–1960s
Location
Middle East
Result Israeli victory
Belligerents
 Israel

 All-Palestine

Supported by:
Egypt Kingdom of Egypt (1950–1953)
 Egypt (1953–1958)
Egypt (UAR) (1958–1970)
Jordan Jordan
Syria Syria
Commanders and leaders
Israeli Presidents
Chaim Weizmann (1948–1952)
Yosef Sprinzak (1952)
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1952–1963)
Kadish Luz (1963)
Zalman Shazar (1963–1970)
Israeli Prime Ministers
David Ben-Gurion (1948–1954, 1955–1963)
Moshe Sharett (1954–1955)
Levi Eshkol (1963–1969)		 Gamal Abdel Nasser
President of Egypt (1956–1970)
Hafez al-Assad
President of Syria (1971-2000)
Hussein bin Talal
King of Jordan (1952–1999)
Casualties and losses
400–967 civilians and soldiers killed during this period by fedayeen attacks (1951–55)[1][2] 2,700–5,000 civilians and soldiers killed by retribution operations (1951–55)[3]

Reprisal operations (Hebrew: פעולות התגמול, Pe'ulot HaTagmul) were raids carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the 1950s and 1960s in response to frequent fedayeen attacks during which armed Arab militants infiltrated Israel from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan to carry out attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers. Most of the reprisal operations followed raids that resulted in Israeli fatalities.[4] The goal of these operations – from the perspective of Israeli officials – was to create deterrence and prevent future attacks. Two other factors behind the raids were restoring public morale and training newly formed army units.[5] A number of these operations involved attacking villages and Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including the 1953 Qibya massacre.

  1. ^ "Map of Fedayeen Raids 1951–1956". Jewish Agency for Israel. Archived from the original on 23 June 2009.
  2. ^ Martin Gilbert (2005). The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Routledge. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-415-35901-6.
  3. ^ Benvenisti, 412–416
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Tal2001p4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Morris, Benny (1993). Israel's Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez War. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 179.