This provided the IDF the vital time it needed to mobilize reservists and bring them to battle against the Egyptians on the southern front.ĭuring the war, the most immediate and dangerous threat to Israel proper was the Syrian attack in the north, on the Golan front. Yet the vast, desert expanse of the Sinai Peninsula served as a defensive barrier, preventing the Egyptian army from swiftly advancing from the Suez Canal to Israel’s southwestern border. They were opposed by fewer than 500 Israeli soldiers who were garrisoning the string of forts along the canal known as the Bar-Lev Line and backed up by a single IDF tank brigade. On the Sinai front, an initial force of five Egyptian divisions totaling 100,000 troops conducted a surprisingly effective assault crossing of the Suez Canal. As both assaults proceeded during the opening hours of the Yom Kippur War, the Egyptian and Syrian armies greatly outnumbered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) units thinly spread across territory Israel had occupied since its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War.

on October 6, 1973, during the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, Israel’s neighboring Arab states of Egypt and Syria launched a powerful, two-front surprise attack, targeting the Sinai in the south and the Golan Heights in the north. You Command: Battle on Golan Heights, 1973 CloseĪt 2 p.m.

Farms tank battle syria israel map