History of the Israel Defense Forces
Egypt came from the south, Lebanon and Syria from the north, and Jordan from the east backed by Iraqi and Saudi troops, in what Azzam Pasha, Arab League Secretary speaking on Cairo radio, declared would be "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.
After the first truce 11 June to 8 July, the Israelis managed to seize the initiative due to new troop enrollments and supplies of arms.
Notable achievements of the IDF include the conquest of Eilat (Um Rashrash), Nazareth, and the capture of the Galilee and the Negev.
By then the IDF had managed to repel the Egyptians to the Gaza Strip while Jordan took over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
"[citation needed] The sensitivity of this issue is indicated by the delay of two weeks before, on 26 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion, for the Provisional Government, published the Israel Defense Forces Ordinance Number 4.
In order to enhance the morale and organization of the army and to combat the resurgent problem with Palestinian infiltration, Unit 101 was formed.
In mid 1956, The Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, encouraged by support from the Soviet Union, nationalized the Suez Canal.
In response, United Kingdom and France planned Operation Musketeer (1956) aiming at regaining Western control of the Suez Canal and removing the Egyptian president Nasser.
[6][7][8][9][10] Israeli armour, equipped with tanks, such as M4 Sherman and AMX-13 quickly defeated the Egyptian forces and took control over the Sinai within a few days.
But the IDF had achieved numerous goals; the borders dramatically tranquilized, Nasser promised to disband the Fedayeen, the Straits of Tiran were once again opened to Israeli ships and maybe most important of all, Israel had illustrated its military strength.
Following the successful campaign in Sinai, the IDF used this relatively quiet decade to arm on a great scale and increase military professionalism.
The main suppliers of weapons was France, which provided Israel rifles, tanks and jet fighters, including the Dassault Mirage III.
[11] In 1967, Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers, stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and announced a partial blockade of Israel's access to the Red Sea.
The two Arab countries reluctantly joined the war, Jordan by shelling the Israeli part of Jerusalem and Syria by entering Israel from the Golan Heights.
Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, Israel Tal, Moshe Peled and Mordechai Gur were admired by the public as "war heroes" while the IAF pilots won unprecedented prestige and were considered to be "the best pilots in the world" (even today, the IAF is considered to be one of the most competent air forces in the world).
After three weeks of fighting, though, and with U.S. air-lifted reinforcements of weapons and equipment (first shipment arrived on 9 October 1973), the IDF pushed the Syrian forces beyond the original lines.
In the Sinai Peninsula, Israeli armor was unable to prevent or push back Egyptian infantry crossing the Suez Canal.
The Israelis failed to capture either town, but succeeded on 24 October in cutting off the supply lines of the Egyptian Third Army to the south after breaking for a few hours a United Nations ceasefire resolution.
The Agranat Commission found serious flaws in the functioning of the intelligence forecasting branch, which failed to foresee the war and ignored various warnings.
In those years the IDF invested most of its efforts in countering international terror, such as the Munich Massacre, committed by the PLO following its deportion from Jordan to Lebanon in the "Black September" of 1970.
In 1976, a group of PLO terrorist hijacked an airliner with 83 Israeli passengers and held them hostages in the Entebbe airport in Uganda.
In 1977 the first F-15 Eagle American warplanes arrived in Israel and only a year later, they logged their first kill in the world when IAF F-15s shot down Syrian MiG (Mikoyan-Gurevich) fighters.
The peace agreement, still valid today, closed the bitter southern front and let the IDF focus on the raging northern border.
On 6 June 1982, following an assassination attempt against its ambassador in London by the Abu Nidal Organization, Israeli forces under direction of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invaded southern Lebanon in their "Operation Peace for the Galilee".
In 2000, in response to a UN resolution calling for this buffer zone to be maintained by the Lebanese government, and for the Syria to end its occupation of Lebanon, Israel withdrew its troops.
Although Syria eventually withdrew from Lebanon, it maintained its influence via Hezbollah who continued to attack Northern Israel long after the withdrawal had been certified by UNIFL.
The failure of the Lebanese government to do so has led to the strengthening of Hezbollah's militants and to the building of an immense arsenal of 13,000 rockets all aimed at civilian centers within Israel.
Later on 12 July Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the captures an "act of war" warranting a "severe and harsh response" and threatened to "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years."
In the following days, hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah increased to a point of both parties exchanging tough rhetoric and escalating into deadly military campaigns.
After several days of Israeli attacks Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared an "open war" with Israel.
