![]() ![]() ![]() ‘I’ll wipe them out with two tanks,’ an Israeli general said It broke a political stalemate and made possible a long Egyptian-Israeli peace that’s unique in the roiling Middle East. Though brief-fighting ended within a month-the conflict had enormous impact. Oil prices would soar to unprecedented heights, and the specter of nuclear war would loom over the battlefield. Before it was over, battalions of tanks, hundreds of aircraft, and legions of soldiers would clash in one of the late 20th-century’s most momentous wars. Simultaneously, a few hundred miles to the north, the rugged hills of the Golan Heights shook with massive explosions as 100 Syrian MiGs attacked Israeli positions and an assault force of as many as 900 tanks and 40,000 infantry crossed into Israeli territory. Without warning, 222 Egyptian MiG and Sukhoi fighters came screaming out of the sky and bombed command posts, surface-to-air batteries, air bases, supply dumps, and radar installations. Israeli defensive positions years in the making were pulverized in minutes. Suddenly, at exactly 2 p.m., this hushed stillness erupted as 2,000 Egyptian artillery pieces, Katyusha rockets, howitzers, and surface-to-surface missiles blasted the canal’s eastern bank, throwing tremendous plumes of sand into the air. The waters of the Suez Canal lapped gently at its sandy shores. Falcons circled lazily in the pale blue sky. Lizards lay about on sun-warmed stones, blinking in contentment. HEAT WAFTED UP IN SLEEPY SPIRALS from the Sinai Desert on the afternoon of October 6, 1973. The Arab-Israeli War of 1973: Honor, Oil, and Blood Close
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