Israel at War: 1973 | 5 Minute Videos

On Yom Kippur 1973, the holiest day of the Jewish year, Israel’s air raid sirens started to blare. Egypt and Syria—still bitter over Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War—had launched a surprise attack. Israel’s survival hung in the balance. How it responded in this existential moment shaped Middle East history for the next five decades.

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The date was October 6, 1973, Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.

Synagogues in Israel were filled with Jews fasting and praying.

Then, at precisely 2:00 p.m., air raid sirens started to blare.

The prayers stopped.

In their place came whispers—rumors of war.

But they weren’t rumors.

In the south, an Egyptian force of 100,000 soldiers backed by 1,300 Soviet-made tanks was crossing the Suez Canal.

They quickly overran a series of fortifications Israel had constructed along the Canal following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israeli fighter jets scrambled to meet the invading force, but the Egyptians were ready with the latest generation of Soviet-designed anti-aircraft batteries. Israeli tanks ran into a deadly barrage of anti-tank missiles. These were weapons Egypt didn’t possess in 1967, and Israel wasn’t prepared to deal with them.

The Egyptians inflicted hundreds of casualties, but the Sinai desert is deep and far from Israel’s southern border.

There was no such buffer in the north.

Hundreds of Syrian tanks, outnumbering Israeli tanks five to one, broke through Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights.

That night, Israel’s legendary Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, appeared on Israeli television and broke down in front of the cameras, telling viewers that the Jewish state was in danger of total destruction.

How did this disaster happen?

There’s one simple answer: complacency.