Third Battle of Mount Hermon
| Third Battle of Mount Hermon | |||||||||
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| Part of the Yom Kippur War | |||||||||
 Map of the Golan campaign. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Israel
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 Syria
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Amir Drori (Israeli outpost) Haim Nadel (Syrian outpost) |
Ahmed Rifai al-Joju (Israeli outpost) | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| ~400 soldiers (Israeli outpost) ~600 (Syrian outpost) |
1 commando battalion (~400 soldiers) | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 55 killed, 79 wounded (Israeli outpost) 1 killed, 4 wounded (Syrian outpost) |
Unknown killed Several captured 7 aircraft destroyed |
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The Third Battle of Mount Hermon was fought on the night of October 21–22, 1973, between the Israeli Army and the Syrian Army over Mount Hermon, during the last days of the Yom Kippur War. Syrian troops had captured the IDF outpost on the mountain on October 6, and held it for two weeks. In the third battle, codenamed Operation Dessert (Hebrew: מבצע קינוח, Mivtza Kinu'ah), Israeli troops captured the Israeli outpost and the Syrian one.
After losing control of Mount Hermon on October 6 and failing to recapture it on October 8, the IDF, and the Golani Brigade in particular, grew determined to recapture it. Its loss levied a heavy toll on Israel's intelligence gathering during the war. At 10:15 PM on October 19, Israeli Chief of Staff (Ramatkal) David Elazar was on his way to the Israeli Northern Command to monitor an attack on the Hermon. At that time, the General Staff learned of the United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's notification of an immediate ceasefire to the war. Elazar was asked to return to Tel Aviv, where he met with the Defense Minister, Moshe Dayan, and they agreed that recapturing the Hermon was top priority.
Yehuda Peled, who had commanded the failed counterattack on October 8, decided that it would be best to attack from the Syrian enclave to the east, instead of from the Golan again. The 4,000 foot climb from that direction was very steep, but would bring the attacking force straight to the Israeli outpost without fighting on the ridge. The Golani commander, Amir Drori, concurred. Peled's 51st battalion was therefore posted in an abandoned Syrian village at the foot of the eastern side of the Hermon. For three nights, the battalion practiced a quick climb with full gear, and Peled concluded that the mission was possible. Elazar ordered him to take the entire crest, including the Syrian Hermon. Golani was to capture the Israeli Hermon, while a reserve paratroopers brigade, under the command of Colonel Haim Nadel, would attack the Syrian positions established before the war.
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Wikipedia