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Six Day War Essay Research Paper The (стр. 2 из 2)

Along the narrow waistline of the state, in the Qalqilya area, the Givati infantry brigade under the command of Zeev Shacham and reinforced with tanks started its advance eastwards to the back of the mountain which was to be taken the following day. At the Kabatiya junction, there was a fierce fight between an armored brigade from Peled’s division and a Jordanian armored brigade which reached the area from the Damya bridge. A little further north from there, IDF troops completed the defeat of Jenin. The Northern Command added an additional tank division to the fight, which fought battles with Jordanian tanks along the way to Tubas. The Jordanian army attempted to supply reinforcements of additional tanks, but they were trapped by the air force on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem and destroyed. The paratroop brigade, continued to gain control of east Jerusalem up to the walls of the old city. Their advance in the populated area was difficult, since many houses became the source of fire from Jordanian army soldiers. The Jerusalem Brigade, who captured in the Abu-Tor district in the south of the city, also faced similar prolonged house to house combat.

The eagerly awaited command to take the old city was given at sunrise on the third day of the war, 7 June, 1967. The Command assigned this task to the paratroopers, who started with an attack on the Augusta-Victoria hills and the Mount of Olives, overlooking the old city. After firing in the direction of the breakthrough path, the Lions Gate, the force from the east advanced forward very quickly and broke through into the old city. The paratroopers ran towards the Dome of the Rock, located next to the last remains of the Temple, the Western Wall, where, in the presence of the sector commander and the deputy head of the armed services, General Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the chief chaplain of the IDF blew a long blow on the rams horn, announcing the release of the Western Wall and the old city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the divided and split capital of Israel, was reunited.

In the mountains of Samaria, the Harel brigade completed the capture of mountain between Ramallah and Nablus, and two battalions of the brigade continued into the Jordan valley along two axes, captured Jericho and in cooperation with a Golani infantry brigade, gained control of Nablus.

The tank forces of Peled’s division captured the routes to Jordan at the Damya (Adam) bridge and gained control of the northern part of the Jordan valley.

During the morning hours, the Jerusalem Brigade advanced on Bethlehem, the Etzion block and Hebron. Resistance was poor, and only here and there the sound of sharpshooters was heard and silenced. Within a short time, the whole of the Hebron mountain area was in the hands of the IDF.

The battle against Syria, Israel’s bitterest enemy, persisted until the fifth day of the Six-Day War, despite the Syrian’s heavy bombardment of the Hula valley settlements and the Galilee. The delay in the breakthrough of the Syrian attack after the defeat of the Egyptian army across Sinai, the release of Jerusalem, and IDF control of Judea and Samaria, raised a fear that it would be the Syrians, who were the source of the tension and caused the general flare-up in the first place, who would not be affected by the IDF. The main reason for the delay in the attack against Syria was because the Northern Command forces under the command of General David Elazar were confined to the Samarian front, where brigade after brigade was taken to help fight in this unexpected front. However, the delay in the attack on the Syrians enabled the concentration of a force enlarged with reinforcements from both the Egyptian and Samarian fronts, on completion of the battles there. International political pressure threatened to impair the operational plans, and a delegation from the northern settlements traveled to Tel Aviv in an effort to convince the Minister of Defense, Moshe Dayan, and the government to release them from the Syrian threat once and for all. In the end, the command was given to open the attack on the Syrian post on the Golan Heights.

The attacking force had to face very difficult topographical conditions. To scale steep, rugged and rocky heights and open a line for transportation while under constant fire from above. The Syrian army sat safely in its strong fortifications on the Golan Heights. It consisted of six infantry brigades, five National Guard battalions and about 200 tanks.

The breakthrough came at 10:00 AM on the morning of 9 June, 1967, after 2 days of heavy bombardment by the air force. It was spearheaded by Colonel Albert’s tank brigade which came from the direction of Givat Ha’em north of Kfar Szold and showered the Syrian posts to the north, on the top of the Heights. In a complex engineering operation, soldiers from the Engineering Corps cleared the way of mines. They were followed by bulldozers which leveled a route for the tanks on the rocky face. The force conquered the Zaura and Kala positions while under heavy artillery fire. At the same time, the Golani infantry brigade under the command of Colonel Yona Efrat fought a fierce battle to conquer its targets in the sector, which included the Tel El-Fahar post which was the most fatal of all. A force consisting of infantry, Nahal and paratroopers defeated a series of other posts overlooking the Hula valley in the southern sector of the Heights and enables the passage of tanks deep into enemy territory. On the night of June 9- 10 an attack was mounted on Jalabina and enemy positions on the region of the border and the Banyas were captured.

The following day, in the morning of the 10 June, 1967, the forces renewed their advance in the north and central regions of the Golan Heights. The infantry and paratrooper units completed their defeat of targets in the area, and the tank units advanced on a number of axes to beyond the town of Quneitra, which was defeated at 3:30 p.m. without any battle. From there, a brigade continued traveling in the Southern Golan captured Butmiye. Another tank force entered and subdued the area at the foot of Mount Hermon, between Banyas and the Lebanese border, together with a Golani brigade and scout units. After this, they went up onto the Golan Heights and defeated Masada.

The Syrian deployment collapsed and the Syrian forces were in retreat.

On the same day, a tank and paratroop force from Elad Peled’s division went up on the Tuafik posts located south-east of the Sea of Galilee, and from there advanced in a north-easterly direction towards Butmiye. In the afternoon of the same day, paratroop forces from the division were landed in the southern Golan Heights to purge the posts scattered across the sector. At the same, infantry forces were active in purging the area north-east of the Sea of Galilee. Towards night, the IDF already controlled the whole of the Golan Heights and was positioned along the whole line passing from Mount Hermon in the south, around Masada, Quneitra and Butmiye junction and extending to the Yarmuk river bed. A unit from the Golani brigade later arrived on the Hermon mountain and determined seizure by the IDF. On 12 June the cease-fire line was set by UN observers along these milestones.