The Six Day War in Israel

The Six Day War was a conflict in 1967, from the 5th to the 10th of June, between Israel and the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. Israel won the war and captured the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank. On the 5th of June, Israel launched airstrikes on Egyptian airfields with almost 200 of their aircraft, destroying almost all of the Egyptian air force on the ground. This gave them almost complete control of the air for the rest of the war. Israel made the first attack of the war; whether this was a justified pre-emptive strike from the threat of the countries around them or an unjustified strike remains a controversy to this day. The Jordanians believed a false report from Egypt that Israel had been destroyed and joined the war on their side. Between the 6th and 7th of June, Israeli attacks took over Jerusalem and the West Bank in reaction to Jordan’s entrance into the war, after which Jordan surrendered.

On the 7th Israel captured the Gaza Strip and soon after, on the 8th, they also captured the Sinai Peninsula from the Egyptians. Following this, the very next day Israel attacked and captured the Golan Heights and, on the day after that the war ended with a clear victory for Israel. During the week-long fight, casualties were heavy, and somewhere between 776 and 983 Israelis, soldiers died compared to the combined total of all their enemies of between about 12,200 and 18,900 casualties.