Operation Rhodes

Date	January 22, 1970
Location	Shadwan Island, Gulf of Suez
Result	Israeli victory

Belligerents

Israel

Egypt

Commanders and leaders

Haim Bar Lev
Haim Nadal

Saad El Shazly

Casualties and losses

3 killed, 7 injured

70 killed, 62 POWs

Operation Rhodes (Hebrew: מבצע רודוס‎‎) was an Israeli heliborne raid against the Egyptian island of Shadwan on 22 January 1970, during the War of Attrition. It was carried out by Israeli paratroopers and Shayetet 13 naval commandos, who took control of the island for over a day before leaving with 62 captured Egyptian soldiers and radar equipment.

Egypt had launched the War of Attrition in order to weaken Israel's hold on the territories in the Sinai it had captured during the 1967 Six Day War. While the war raged mainly along the Suez Canal, Israel hoped to secure a ceasefire by showing Cairo that it could strike anywhere in Egypt and by presenting the Egyptian leadership with the prospect of an all out conflict for which Egypt was likely ill-prepared. Refusing to limit the war to the canal front, in January 1970 Israel launched Operation Priha, a series of Israeli Air Force (IAF) strikes against targets in the Egyptian heartland, while its ground forces were tasked with a strike at the isolated and lightly garrisoned Shadwan. The aim of the raid was to capture Egyptian POWs to be exchanged for Israeli prisoners in Egypt, and to sabotage a local radar post which was deemed a threat to Israeli shipping in the Gulf of Suez.

The task of taking Shadwan was assigned to the IDF's Paratroopers Brigade under the command of Haim Nadal. Its 202nd Battalion, commanded by Lt. Colonel Ya'acov Hasdai, and the brigade's elite reconnaissance company (Sayeret Tzanhanim), commanded by Captain Motti Paz, were to land on the island. These were to be assisted Shayetet-13 operators, while additional paratroops were to be at hand at Sharm el-Sheikh and on nearby Israeli Navy vessels.

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Wikipedia