Six-Day War

The Six-Day War, or the 1967 Arab–Israeli war (5–10 June 1967), was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, in the context of the Arab–Israeli conflict. In the war, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Military hostilities broke out amid poor relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors, who 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 Israel's southeastern tip) escalated in what became known as the Suez Crisis, when Israel, along with Britain and France, invaded Egypt over the Egyptian closure of maritime passageways to Israeli shipping, ultimately resulting in the reopening of the Straits of Tiran to Israel and the deployment of the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) along the Egypt–Israel border.

In the months before 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, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.

The war began on 5 June 1967 with Operation Focus, an Israeli surprise attack consisting of a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities as the UNEF was leaving the zone. Israel caught Egyptian forces by surprise and destroyed nearly all of Egypt's air force, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Nasser ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the fourth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which had entered into a defense pact with Egypt 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 their advance. On the fifth day, Syria joined the war by shelling Israeli positions in the north.

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; 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 and naval forces mistakenly assaulted a United States Navy spy ship.

When hostilities ceased, 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 had long-term consequences, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, respectively. Nasser resigned in shame after Israel's victory, but was reinstated after a series of protests across Egypt. In the aftermath of the conflict, Egypt closed the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975.