1973 October War

Yom Kippur War/October War
Part of the Cold War and Arab–Israeli conflict
Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal on October 7
Date October 6–25, 1973 Location Both banks of the Suez Canal, Golan Heights and surrounding regions Result Israeli military victory Political gains for Egypt and Israel 1978 Camp David Accords Territorial changes The Egyptian army occupied the eastern coast of the Suez Canal with the exception of the Israeli crossing point near Deversoir. The Israeli army occupied sixteen hundred square kilometers of territory on the southwestern coast of the Suez Canal, within 100 km from Cairo, and encircled an Egyptian enclave in the east bank The Israeli army occupied five hundred square kilometers of the Syrian Bashan, on top of the Golan Heights, which brought it within 20 miles of Damascus.
Belligerents
Israel	Egypt  Syria Expeditionary forces: Iraq  Jordan  Saudi Arabia  Algeria  Cuba  Morocco Supported by: Libya
Commanders and leaders
Golda Meir Moshe Dayan David Elazar Israel Tal Shmuel Gonen Yitzhak Hofi Binyamin Peled Haim Bar-Lev Albert Mandler † Ariel Sharon	Anwar Sadat Hafez al-Assad Ahmad Ismail Ali Mustafa Tlass Saad El Shazly Yusuf Shakkour Abdel Ghani el-Gammasy Ali Aslan Omar Abrash †
Strength
375,000–415,000 troops 1,700 tanks 3,000 armored carriers 945 artillery units 440 combat aircraft	Egypt: 650,000–800,000 troops (200,000 crossed) 1,700 tanks (1,020 crossed) 2,400 armored carriers 1,120 artillery units 400 combat aircraft 140 helicopters 104 Navy vessels 150 surface to air missile batteries (62 in the front line) Syria: 150,000 troops 1,200 tanks 800–900 armored carriers 600 artillery units Expeditionary Forces*: 100,000 troops 500–670 tanks 700 armored carriers Cuba: 1,500–4,000 troops Morocco: 5,500 troops 30 tanks 52 combat aircraft Saudi-Arabia: 3,000 troops Total: 914,000–1,067,500 troops 3,430–3,600 tanks 3,900–4,000 armored carriers 1,720 artillery units 452 combat aircraft 140 helicopters 104 navy vessels 150 surface to air missile batteries
Casualties and losses
2,521–2,800 dead 7,250–8,800 wounded 293 captured 1,063 tanks destroyed, damaged or captured 407 armored vehicles destroyed or captured 102–387 aircraft destroyed	Egypt: 5,000–15,000 dead 8,372 captured Syria: 3,000–3,500 dead 392 captured Iraq: 278 dead 898 wounded 13 captured Jordan: 23 dead 77 wounded Morocco: 6 captured Total casualties: 8,000–18,500 dead 18,000–35,000 wounded 8,783 captured 2,250–2,300 tanks destroyed 341–514 aircraft destroyed 19 naval vessels sunk

Israeli military victory

Expeditionary forces:

Supported by:

The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War, or October War Hebrew: מלחמת יום הכיפורים‎‎ Milẖemet Yom HaKipurim or מלחמת יום כיפור Milẖemet Yom Kipur); (Arabic: حرب أكتوبر‎‎ Ḥarb ʾUktōbar, or حرب تشرين Ḥarb Tišrīn, also known as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, was a war fought by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel from October 6 to 25, 1973. The fighting mostly took place in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, territories that had been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat wanted also to reopen the Suez Canal. Neither specifically planned to destroy Israel, although the Israeli leaders could not be sure of that.

The war began when the Arab coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israeli positions in the Israeli-occupied territories on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which also occurred that year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights respectively. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers.