One of the missiles was fired at Arish and the others at the Israeli bridgehead on the western bank of the Suez Canal, near Deversoir.

One of the lessons learned by Egypt following the Six-Day War was the need of a weapon able to hit deep inside Israel.

The Scud division included 10 launchers, and Israel Military Intelligence (Aman) estimated that the manpower training would take at least 11–12 months, meaning that Egypt would only be able to use the missiles in the first quarter of 1974 at the earliest.

The Agranat Commission later referred to the Scud missiles and saw them as a factor that could have changed the balance of power on the battlefield.

As a response to the intelligence estimates, Israel launched aircraft sorties in the region and asked the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Simcha Dinitz, to inform the U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, about the Soviet missions, so he would discuss the subject with his Soviet counterpart.

The following day, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat threatened that he would retaliate with surface-to-surface missiles as a response to attacks deep inside Egypt.

In the last few minutes before the ceasefire took into effect, the Soviet teams managed to fire three missiles, without Egyptian knowledge or approval.

[7][8] Later on, Sadat claimed in his book that he commanded the forces to fire the Scuds at the Israeli bridgehead: "I wanted Israel to know that we have such weapons and that we would be able to use them later on in the war".