Israel Defeats Three Arab Armies in Six Days

On the morning of June 5, 1967, Israeli aircraft launched Operation Focus, a sudden aerial offensive against Egyptian airfields. In the preceding weeks, regional tensions had escalated sharply after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sent large numbers of troops into the Sinai, demanded the withdrawal of the United Nations Emergency Force, and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli vessels. Israel regarded the maritime closure as an overt casus belli. Striking while Egyptian aircraft were parked on exposed runways, Israeli pilots destroyed virtually the entire Egyptian Air Force within hours, quickly establishing complete aerial supremacy.

Hostilities spread rapidly across multiple fronts as Jordan and Syria entered the conflict under preexisting mutual defense arrangements. Jordanian forces began shelling West Jerusalem on the first day, while Syrian forces initiated artillery shelling along the northern border. Concurrently, Israeli ground forces advanced into the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and pressed across the Sinai Peninsula, utilizing concentrated armored thrusts and flanking maneuvers through difficult desert corridors rather than assaulting reinforced Egyptian border lines directly.