The October War of Liberation

It is said that it was one of the hardest wars ever fought between the Arabs and Israel  – the October war of liberation in 1973.

Though this war was legendary in many ways it is only Egypt and Syria that commemorate it today.

The promoted myth at that time was that Israel was invincible and logic would counsel against another challenge .Full of arrogance and self worth the Israelis didn’t expect another war-and war was what happened !

How did it all start ?It started with the Syrian side and Egyptian side  attacking simultaneously on two different fronts .The Syrian army attacked from the direction of the Golan at exactly 2 PM on the 6 th of October 1973 and that day was an incredible success!!

As for the Egyptian army it managed to across the Suez Canal and capture the Bar Lev Line which is a fortified sandwall on the east bank of the canal and it was called operation Badra.
The war continued for 3 weeks with victories achieved by Syria and Egypt.Syria regained the Kuneitra(capital of the Golan)and huge swaths of land.

In this war from the Egyptian army 8528 were martyred and 20,000 were injured while from the Syrian army 3000 were martyred and 20,000 were injured .As for the opposing Israeli side 2522 were killed.
The armies of Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan ,Morocco Libya and Tunisia were in a state of alert waiting to help the armies of Syria and Egypt if need be and indeed some of these armies participated alongside Syria and Egypt.

Why is this war not commemorated as it should be?
Maybe because it didn’t go exactly according to plan due to Anwar Sadat the president of Egypt then ,who let down President Hafez Al Assad of Syria and sought his own version of separate peace!!Sadat coming after Nasser had big shoes to fill and it was only by deviating from the pan Arab stand then ,that he wrongly thought  he could make his mark on history .This deviation of Sadat is responsible for many of the problems facing Syria and the Arab world currently.

The real victory in the October war of Liberation of 1973  lies not only in the material gains made by Syria and Egypt but in the fact that moral of the Israeli army was broken -the unbreakable broke and the undefeated was defeated.

Reem Haddad
Editor – in – Chief