The Six Day War began on June 5, 1967 when Israel launched a surprise air attack on Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian air forces, destroying over 400 Arab planes. Within a few days, Israel gained control of the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, West Bank, and Golan Heights. This doubled Israel's size and weakened its Arab neighbors, who lost thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks. The war heightened tensions and displaced many Palestinians, placing the occupied territories under Israeli control.

1. The Six Day War
On June 1967, Israel went to war with the 8 Arab states around them. This time, the
Arabs were well armed and prepared. It seems that the Arabs were going to win this
war.
The War Commences
The roots of this war started in Syria, where the
army overthrew the Syrian government in 1966.
Syria’s new extremists leader, General Jedid took
over and is now in control of the army and the
government. Syria became violently anti-Israel.
A big number of Syrian soliders were stationed in
Golan heights, which is located on the Israeli
border. This lead the Fatah (Palestine National
Liberation Movement) to start a propaganda
campaign to detest the Jews even more.
The actual war started when an Israeli tractor
clouded up some Arab owned land, as the
situation developed the Syrian troops fired and
Six Day War: Al-Farida, Lebanon, showed Nasser kicking the killed. In return, the Israeli air force bombed the
"Jew" Israel, into the sea, with the armies of Lebanon, Syria and Syrian station. So Syria continued to attack
Iraq supporting him. Israel.
http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/6daywar.htm
May 11: the Israel prime minister, Eshkol warn
that they would retaliate if the Arabs don’t stop
the attacks, they would attack Damascus.
This got the USSR involved as it is Syria’s ally. As USSR was supplying money, weapon and training to
Syria.
May 16: The President of Egypt ordered the UN emergency force to patrol the border between Israel and
Egypt’s border. But the UN realized that their force is too small so they withdrew their force.
May 23: The Arab world was happy about the actions of the Egypt President and were more confident
about winning and wiping out the state of Israel. This was all said out openly for the world to hear.
May 28: Jordan and Egypt formed a defence pack with Iraq, while Syria already had a pack with the Egypt.
In1967, it looked like Israel was going to lose this war for sure.
- 8 Arab states were about to attack with:
- 100,000 Egyptian men
- 1,000 tanks from Sinai
These eight Arab states were Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Algeria, Sudan and Egypt.
General Moshedayn advised, “The best form of defense is attack, surprise attack.”
This war began 5th June in 1967 and lasted for 6 days. But the outcome was already decided on the 1st day.
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2. The Six Day War
- 5th June, 1967: Israel launched a massive scale surprise air attack on arabic countries
- Those countries included Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
- 5th June Egyptian time 0845, Israel sent every plane they have to attack 25 arabic air bases
- Ended at 1800
- Attacked a total of 4 times
- First time: 10 in Egypt
- Second time: 8 in Egypt
- Third time: Air base of Jordan, Syria and Iraq
- Last time: Egypt Cairo international Airport
- Israel destroyed a total of 451 arabic planes
- Egypt lost 336 planes
- Syria lost 60 planes
- Jordan lost 29 planes
- Iraq lost 25 planes
- Lebanon lost 1 plane
- Arabia lost 95% of their air force as a result
- Israel only lost 26 planes
- Israel started sending tanks and armored cars to South Sinai half an hour after the air attack
- Gaza, Al-Arish and Abu Ogra were attacked
- Most of Egypt's troops were in the Nile river Delta defending Israeli troops because of the Suez-Sinai war
- Lack of troops where they needed them rendered them vulnerable to the Israeli attack
- Israel took control of Gaza
- Israel moved into Al-Arish and Abu Ogra
- Israeli troops moved in three directions to the Suez Canal
- Because of the lack of air support, Egypt troops lost control of South Sinai
- Egypt was forced to move back to the Suez Canal and give up control of Sinai
- After Egypt, Israel attacked Jordan
- Israel had control of everything west of Jordan River (the West Bank) and the old city of Jerusalem in two days
- Israeli troops used the mechanization army to block the road between the old city of Jerusalem and Ramallah
- Then, they sent sky troopers into the old city at night
- Israeli troops attacked the city at the same time to buy some time for the sky troopers
- The Sky troopers occupied the city in a very short amount of time
- Jordan accepted the Ceasefire ordered by the UN after the war
- However, Israel sent a huge amount of troops to attack the Syrian army in Golan Heights after the Ceasefire
- The Israelis took control of the whole area on the 10th June
- The Arabic countries accepted the Ceasefire during the day, and the six day war ended there.
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3. Consequences of the War
The results of this war was important to the whole Middle East.
- Israel was safer and stronger than
before after wining many wars.
- Ignoring the U.N order, Israel did
not return captured territory.
- Sinai
- Gaza Strip
- West Bank
- Golan Heights
This doubled the size of their
country and also made their
frontiers shorter, which makes it
easier to defend. (Right)
While the Israeli’s were happy it
was the opposite for the Arabs.
- Arabs have lost many things in the war From this map, we could see that the Six Day War
has dramatically increased Israel's land.
- 15,000 men were killed
http://www.preceptaustin.org/biblical_maps.htm
- 430 aircraft and 800 of their tanks were either
captured or destroyed
- They have lost nearly 70,000 km² of land
- Palestinians who have been living around the West Bank and the Gaza Strip found themselves ‘occupied
territory’
- There was an increase in population in Transjordan because Arabs fled from occupied territory in Israel.
- Those who decided to stay in the occupied territory led miserable lives - Israelis are most strict with them and
some Palestinians had their homes destroyed. There were restrictions on their lives such as:
- Work permits
- Traveling
- Heavy police surveillance
- In the very end, Palestinians have given up hope on the ability of Arab states fighting back their land. Instead
they put their trust that may have hope of liberating Palestine - Fatah.
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Written by: Eileen, Simon, Sunny, Vidisha