13/09/2026
The year was 1967, and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had just moved 100,000 troops and 900 tanks into the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel faced armies on three fronts. Egypt to the south.
Syria to the north.
Jordan to the east. Together they outnumbered Israeli forces more than two to one.
Nasser had expelled the UN peacekeeping force and closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Israel had said repeatedly that closing the strait would mean war. Iraqi troops were moving into Jordan. The noose was tightening.
Israeli military planners knew they could not survive a war of attrition. They designed Operation Moked, a preemptive strike of breathtaking audacity. Nearly 200 aircraft would attack simultaneously. Only twelve fighters would remain behind for air defense.
The pilots had practiced for years. They studied reconnaissance photos of every Egyptian runway, every shelter, every dispersal area. They memorized patrol schedules and shift changes.
The timing was chosen with precision: 7:45 AM Egyptian time, when morning patrols had landed and officers were commuting to their bases.
But first the aircraft would fly west, out over the Mediterranean, in the opposite direction from Egypt.
On the morning of June 5, virtually the entire Israeli Air Force took off. They flew west until Egyptian radar lost interest. Then they turned south.
They came in low under the radar. Egyptian pilots were changing shifts. Some were traveling to work. Others had just landed from patrol.
Israeli jets hit the runways first with specially designed pe*******on bombs. The craters stopped aircraft from taking off. Then came the strafing runs. Planes lined up on runways, sitting targets.
By noon, Egypt's air force was finished. Over 300 aircraft destroyed, most without ever leaving the ground.
That afternoon, Israel struck Syrian and Jordanian air bases. Another 100 aircraft gone.
With total air supremacy, the ground war became a foregone conclusion. In the Sinai, Israeli armored divisions under generals Israel Tal, Ariel Sharon, and Avraham Yoffe smashed through Egyptian defensive positions and raced for the Suez Canal. Egyptian units attempting to retreat were caught in mountain passes and destroyed from the air. The Sinai campaign was over in three days.
On the Jordanian front, Israeli paratroopers fought through the narrow streets of Jerusalem's Old City. They reached the Western Wall on June 7. Israeli forces captured the entire West Bank in two days.
On the Syrian front, Israeli troops stormed the Golan Heights on June 9, breaching bunker complexes the Syrians believed were impregnable.
The ceasefire took effect on June 10. Israel had tripled its territory in 132 hours.
The cost was significant. Israel suffered roughly 800 dead and 2,500 wounded. Arab losses were far heavier: 20,000 dead across all three fronts. The war's political consequences proved even more profound than its military ones.
Today, Israel still occupies the West Bank and the Golan Heights, a geopolitical reality that remains unresolved over half a century later.
They won the war in six days. They inherited a problem that no war or negotiation has solved.
