[00:11] In one of our previous videos on modern warfare,
we covered the Six-Day War between Israeli
[00:17] and the Arab States surrounding it, but this
wasn’t the first time the adversaries had
[00:22] clashed. In
the aftermath of World War II, British withdrawal
[00:26] from its Mandate in Palestine split open a
power vacuum into Palestinian and Jewish interests
[00:33] flowed. This eventually resulted in the dawn
of Jewish statehood in the Middle-East and
[00:38] the First Arab-Israeli War.  Welcome to our
series on
[00:43] the modern warfare! If you are interested
in the history of this era, don’t forget
[00:47] to check out our
second channel – The Cold War – the link
[00:52] Tensions between Arab Palestinian and Jewish
communities in the British Mandate of Palestine
[00:57] had been increasing ever since the end of
the First World War, heightened with broken
[01:02] Imperial
promises to both sides. This state of affairs
[01:07] finally exploded into civil war following
the UN vote
[01:10] for a partition of Palestine into Jewish and
Arab states on November 29th 1947, a solution
[01:18] which
the Palestinians and the Arab League refused.
[01:22] As small-scale skirmishes gradually escalated
throughout late 1947 and early 1948, Palestinian
[01:29] Arab group - the Arab Liberation Army proved
incapable of defeating their better organised
[01:35] opponents. Due to the chaos, tens of thousands
of
[01:38] Palestinian refugees fled into neighboring
Arab states, further enflaming the public
[01:44] of those
countries to demand war. A full-scale conflict
[01:48] was prevented until in May of 1948, as the
area
[01:52] was still a British Mandate, but this state
of affairs was set to expire on the 15th.
[01:58] At 4PM on the
afternoon of May 14th 1948, eight hours before
[02:03] British sovereignty dissolved, David Ben-Gurion
proclaimed the establishment of the State
[02:09] of Israel, becoming its first prime minister.
That night,
[02:13] armies of five Arab nations surrounding Israel
attacked the newly created state, starting
[02:19] the First
Arab-Israeli War.
[02:24] While it has been popular to tout the phrase
‘one army against seven’ to describe the
[02:29] military
situation, it gives off an impression which
[02:32] is incorrect - that the combined Arab nations
drastically outnumbered their enemy. A breakdown
[02:38] instead shows that the total strength of about
23,500 soldiers, 10,000 of which were from
[02:44] the Egyptian army. Egypt possessed the most
extensive military establishment in the region
[02:50] which had also been supplied and trained by
Britain. Their ground forces were organised
[02:56] into three infantry brigades, one tank brigade
comprising 50 tanks and three artillery battalions
[03:03] armed with 65 howitzer artillery pieces. In
the
[03:06] air, Egypt could field five squadrons of 18
fighting aircraft each and one transport squadron.
[03:14] Iraq
[03:15] appeared similarly powerful on the surface,
but only sent 3,000 men in the initial attack.
[03:20] The
bulk of Iraqi ground forces were structured
[03:23] in three divisions - two infantry and one
‘training’
[03:26] division, supported by an armoured battalion
of 15 to 20 tanks and 70 to 80 artillery pieces.
[03:33] The
Iraqi airforce consisted of 80 aircraft overall,
[03:37] but only half of these were fully operational
and
[03:39] combat ready.
In addition, the relatively elite Arab Legion
[03:46] of Transjordan supplied 4,500 well trained,
British-
[03:50] led soldiers. 3,000 more came from Lebanon,
3,000 from Syria and a token contingent from
[03:57] Saudi Arabia. In comparison to the efforts
of their Arab enemies, the Israelis had mobilised
[04:03] almost their entire resource base and able-bodied
population for the conflict, having, according
[04:09] to Ben-Gurion’s diary, 29,677 troops at
the outbreak of the war. Israel had only
[04:17] 3 Sherman tanks
at the start of the conflict.
[04:23] On the southern front, Egyptian forces launched
thrusts across the border from eastern Sinai
[04:27] in a
three-pronged assault. The Egyptian command,
[04:32] under the authority of General Ahmed Ali al-
Muwawi, believed it necessary to capture a
[04:36] number of strongpoints in order to secure
the rear
[04:39] lines. To this end, forces were committed
to assault and capture a number of Jewish
[04:44] communities
in the northern Negev region, known plurally
[04:48] as kibbutzim. The first target was Kfar-Darom,
a
[04:52] religious 10 kilometres to the south of Gaza.
This settlement had already withstood an attack
[04:58] by
fighters of the Muslim Brothers group, and
[05:01] it now came under attack from the Egyptian
army.
[05:05] After an initial artillery barrage, eight
tanks followed by infantry approached Kfar-Darom,
[05:10] but
retreated in short order after suffering repeated
[05:13] direct hits from the settlement’s only PIAT
projector and being pelted with molotov cocktails. Similar
[05:20] stiff resistance was faced at the
neighboring kibbutz of Nirim, where around
[05:25] 40 entrenched Israeli defenders managed to
repel
[05:28] sustained assaults from a thousand Egyptian
troops supported by artillery and mortar fire.
[05:34] Both
settlements were eventually bypassed for fear
[05:36] of stalling the main thrust. As these initial
ground
[05:41] attacks were going on, airfields around Tel-Aviv
were attacked by Egyptian Spitfires, causing
[05:47] heavy economic damage and moral damage. However,
the fortune of Egypt’s pilots soon turned
[05:53] due to improving Israeli air defence and an
accidental strike on the British held Ramat
[05:58] David
Airfield, which led to heavy losses at the
[06:01] hands of British fighter aircraft. By the
end of May,
[06:05] almost all of the Spitfire squadron’s planes
and a significant number of its best pilots
[06:10] were lost.
On land, a meticulously planned offensive
[06:14] was launched against the kibbutz of Yad-Moerdechai,
which was situated atop a hill which held
[06:19] a dominating position over the main coastal
road. Its
[06:23] defenders held out for five days and inflicted
heavy casualties before falling back.
[06:31] The advancing Egyptian column aiming for Tel-Aviv
came to a halt around 30 kilometres south
[06:36] of the city at a place called Isdud, where
it dug in. Just before sunset on May 29th,
[06:43] the newly
formed Israeli Defense Forces launched Operation
[06:46] Pleshet, beginning with an air attack by a
squadron of four recently imported Czech Avia
[06:52] S-199. They strafed Isdud in an assault which,
while being ineffective conventionally, had
[06:58] a drastic impact on morale. The Israelis were
elated
[07:02] that they now had air capability, while the
Egyptians were extremely unnerved of future
[07:08] attacks
from above. The next blow was struck on the
[07:11] ground. Israel feared that the Egyptians would
resume their advance on Tel-Aviv, and ordered
[07:17] the Giv’ati and Negev Brigades to assault
and
[07:20] destroy the enemy vanguard. 2,000 Israelis
fought a 2,500 strong force of entrenched
[07:27] Egyptian
troops, suffering heavy casualties after only
[07:30] making slight gains. Nevertheless, Operation
Pleshet
[07:34] panicked the Egyptian command, with General
Al-Muwawi informing Cairo that he ‘could
[07:39] not
advance one step further’ without risking
[07:42] total disaster. Any plans of advancing on
Tel-Aviv
[07:46] were cancelled, and the Southern front bogged
down.
[07:52] On the Jordanian front, ‘Etzioni, Palmah
Harel and Alexandroni Brigades each responsible
[07:58] for
defending different areas were facing the
[08:01] Arab Legion. The Legion’s push into the
West Bank
[08:04] was initially relatively unopposed, with many
left-behind Legion units in Palestine facilitating
[08:10] easy progress, While the First Brigade advanced
towards Nablus and fanned out around the
[08:16] town, the Third Brigade headed north from
Jericho and then west, deploying around Ramallah.
[08:22] Two days later, the Third Brigade’s Fourth
Regiment was ordered to the critical fort
[08:27] of Latrun -
located right on top of the western approach
[08:30] to Jerusalem. This key point had switched
hands
[08:34] between Arab forces and Jews multiple times
just before the Mandate expired, but was occupied
[08:40] by the Fourth Regiment without any trouble.
So, on May 18th, the road from the coastal
[08:46] plain to
Jerusalem was severed, preventing the Israelis
[08:49] from reinforcing or resupplying their troops
in
[08:52] besieged Jerusalem. Around the city itself
to north and south, fighting was extremely
[08:57] fierce. 
Jewish forces successfully repelled Jordanian
[09:04] assaults at the Notre Dame Cathedral on the
northern approaches, while a combined Arab
[09:09] force - assisted by an Egyptian contingent
of
[09:11] several hundred, attacked the Ramat Rachel
kibbutz from the south on May 21st. The settlement
[09:17] was taken and retaken until it was eventually
secured by the defenders on May 25th. While
[09:24] Jewish Jerusalem held its ground against the
persistent Legion attacks, the Jewish Quarter
[09:29] of the
Old City surrendered on May 28th, with only
[09:33] 36 of its 300 fighters still capable of fighting.
Under the terms of surrender, civilians were
[09:39] allowed to leave for Israeli-held West Jerusalem,
while soldiers and men of fighting age would
[09:45] become prisoners of war. The professional
Legionnaires protected them against the locals,
[09:51] even using the lethal force, escorting their
defeated foe to safety. Realising the situation
[09:57] in the Holy City was worsening, Prime Minister
Ben-Gurion ordered Israeli forces to assault
[10:02] the Legion-garrisoned Latrun fort and break
through
[10:05] to Jerusalem. On May 25th, May 30th and June
9 th IDF launched ultimately disastrous assaults,
[10:14] often by untrained troops against entrenched
Jordanian fighters. By June 10th, an alternative
[10:20] route to West Jerusalem had been opened which
was dubbed the ‘Burma Road’, nicknamed
[10:25] after
the British World War II supply route against
[10:28] the Japanese.
In Galilee, the first phase of the war saw
[10:35] Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese forces launching
attacks into
[10:38] the former Mandate. After suffering some heavy
casualties advancing through the upper Jordan
[10:44] Valley, an Iraqi army of one armoured and
two infantry brigades set up in the Samaria
[10:49] region,
between the towns of Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm.
[10:54] This force launched an assault towards
Natanya from these positions on May 25 th
[10:59] ended in defeat, but the prospect that an
Iraqi
[11:02] breakthrough could slice the Jewish state
in two worried high command so much that it
[11:07] ordered a
counterattack on May 29th, aimed at occupying
[11:11] strong defensive positions opposite the Iraqis.
In
[11:14] the Battle of Jenin, Israeli forces occupied
the city, but were subsequently dislodged
[11:20] after three
days of heavy fighting. Similarly, to their
[11:24] Egyptian allies, this pyrrhic victory panicked
the Iraqi
[11:27] forces and dissuaded them from attacking again.
Even further north, a Syrian force comprising
[11:34] an infantry brigade, a mechanised battalion,
an artillery regiment and a company of tanks
[11:39] crossed
into Israel on May 15th, seeking to storm
[11:43] a cluster of kibbutzim around the Sea of Galilee
before
[11:46] pushing into the Jewish heartland. The kibbutzim
resisted far longer than anticipated and the
[11:52] Syrians captured Zemakh only on the 18 th
. Despite this success, the Syrians failed
[11:59] to occupy
Degania, and this setback eventually forced
[12:02] a withdrawal from Zemakh. They subsequently
redeployed in the hills to the east. Finally,
[12:09] Lebanese forces crossed the border and captured
Malkiya on May 15th, lost it on the 18th,
[12:15] and then finally recaptured it on June 6th,
only four
[12:18] days before the first truce began.
[12:24] The four-week UN backed truce started on June
11th was beneficial for both sides, which
[12:30] began
to break the terms immediately. The Arab armies
[12:34] were in desperate need of reorganisation and
replenishment, but their efforts in bolstering
[12:39] the war effort was nothing compared to that
of the
[12:42] Israelis. What had previously been the semi-legal
Haganah concluded its transformation from
[12:47] an
underground militia into a fully-fledged army
[12:50] during the truce in terms of command and control
capacity, manpower potential and weaponry.
[12:56] The IDF doubled its numbers from around 35,000
to 65,000. More crucial, however, were the
[13:04] massive quantities of badly-needed armament
which
[13:07] reached Israeli shores. 25,000 rifles, 5,000
machine guns and more than 50 million rounds
[13:14] of
ammunition from Czechoslovakia, in addition
[13:18] to heavier equipment such as tanks, heavy
artillery
[13:20] and armoured cars. Because of this transformation,
the army facing the Arabs after the truce
[13:26] was
massively different from the force they had
[13:29] met on May 15th. One British official stated
that
[13:32] “The Arabs lost the initiative in Palestine
during the four weeks, and the Jews were able
[13:38] to re-
equip themselves.”. This fact allowed the
[13:41] IDF to subsequently seize the initiative as
the first
[13:44] truce ended.
The day before hostilities were due to resume,
[13:51] Egyptian forces in the south launched a series
of
[13:53] attacks to solidify their stranglehold on
the Negev region. However, they were quickly
[13:59] counterattacked by the IDF and spent the subsequent
8 days in heavy fighting for the region. Just
[14:06] before the second truce on the 18th, the Israeli
forces managed to break through Egyptian lines,
[14:12] tenuously linking the isolated Jewish Negev
settlements with the heartland. Nevertheless,
[14:18] attacks
on Jewish convoys were quite frequent. In
[14:21] the north, Israeli armies launched an assault
on Syrian
[14:24] positions near Mishmar-Hayarden in an attempt
to push the enemy back over the Jordan River
[14:30] on
the 9th. This failed, but a subsequent offensive
[14:33] dubbed Operation Dekel brought Lower Galilee
under control from Haifa Bay to the Sea of
[14:39] Galilee. The main IDF offensive, known as
Operation
[14:43] Danny, was directed against the Arab Legion
on the Jordanian front. Israeli forces, led
[14:49] by
General Yigal Allon, launched a pincer maneuver
[14:52] from southwest and northwest, occupying
Lydda, then Ramle and the springs at Ras el-Ein.
[14:59] When the second UN organised truth went into
effect on July 18th, the IDF had gained 1,000
[15:05] square kilometres of territory and Arab pressure
on
[15:08] Jerusalem had been reduced. 
After UN attempts at negotiating a peace settlement
[15:16] during the second truce failed, the war
entered its most intense phase on October
[15:21] 15th. Despite Egyptian weakness and overextension
on
[15:25] the southern front, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion
realised that he needed to seize the sparsely
[15:30] populated Negev region if his Jewish State
was to be secure in the long term. As things
[15:36] stood, the
frontline was far too close to Israel’s
[15:40] core on the Mediterranean coast. Under the
command of
[15:43] General Yigal Allon, Operation Yoav was planned,
comprising three infantry brigades with
[15:49] artillery and air support. Facing them was
a 15,000 strong, well-fortified Egyptian army
[15:55] which
possessed heavy firepower. Nevertheless, despite
[15:59] its good position, the lack of the defensive
depth was a vulnerability. At 6PM on the 15th,
[16:06] the Israeli airforce of 4 Czech Avia S-199s,
7
[16:11] Spitfires and 3 B-17 bombers hit the Egyptian
airfield at El’Arish and key targets in
[16:17] Gaza and
Majdal from above. This air attack achieved
[16:21] complete surprise, and the IAFs superior airmen
would subsequently ensure superiority in the
[16:27] skies through the operation. Unfortunately,
some of
[16:31] the bombing runs were off-target and many
refugees were accidentally killed at the village
[16:36] of al-
Jura, one of many occasions civilians would
[16:39] become unintentional casualties during this
war.
[16:43] The ground attack of Yoav began in the evening,
with multiple thrusts into Israeli lines.
[16:49] Fighting
continued for around a week, and by the time
[16:52] it was over on the 22nd, had driven the Egyptians
from their coastal positions from Isdud to
[16:58] Gaza and expelled them from the Judean and
Hebron
[17:02] hills. Their extended line of defence had
been shattered and the capital of Negev - Beersheba
[17:08] fell
[17:09] to the IDF. To make the Egyptian situation
worse, an entire 4,000 strong brigade had
[17:15] been
trapped in what would come to be known as
[17:17] the Faluja pocket. They would stay trapped
for the
[17:20] remainder of the war. 
On the seas, minor battles took place between
[17:27] Israeli and Egyptian corvettes near Majdal.
However, a more significant operation on the
[17:33] 22nd saw an IDF commando group use explosive-
packed boats to ram the Egyptian flagship
[17:39] Emir Farouk, sinking it and damaging its
minesweeper escort. Buoyed by their successes
[17:45] in the south, Operation Hiram was launched
in
[17:48] Galilee by four infantry brigades led by General
Moshe Carmel. In some 60 hours of fighting,
[17:55] 800 Arab fighters were and taken Prisoner.
Israeli troops managed to expel the ALA and
[18:01] a
Syrian battalion from Upper Galilee and also
[18:04] drove all Lebanese soldiers out of Israel.
They
[18:07] subsequently thrust 5 miles into Lebanon,
capturing numerous border villages and reaching
[18:13] as far
as the Litani River before coming to a halt
[18:16] when yet another UN ceasefire came into effect.
The
[18:20] fronts largely quietened down at this point
as the two sides once again stopped to catch
[18:25] their
breath. In Operations Hiram and Yoav, the
[18:29] IDF had expanded Israel’s holdings, demolished
the
[18:32] ALA, badly blasted apart the Egyptians and
had linked the Negev settlements with the
[18:38] Jewish
heartland. It was a positive turn, but there
[18:41] was still work to do. 
The strains of extensive Israeli mobilisation
[18:48] was becoming economically untenable. The war
had
[18:52] to be ended, but the status quo, especially
on the southern front, was still unacceptable
[18:57] to Jewish
leaders. Egypt remained in control of the
[19:01] Gaza strip and Faluja pocket areas of Mandatory
Palestine, fortified in a chain of strong
[19:07] points between 'Auja al-Hafir and Bir
Aslug - just south
[19:11] of Beersheba. However, its army was on the
verge of collapse, and realistically had to
[19:16] either
withdraw from Palestine completely or conclude
[19:19] a peace with Israel. Neither of these methods
succeeded due to political pressures. So,
[19:26] hoping to push the Arab enemy off the soil
Israel
[19:29] viewed as its own, Operation Horev began on
December 22nd. It was initiated by air and
[19:35] artillery
strikes on positions along the Mediterranean
[19:38] coast and Gaza strip, followed by initial
ground
[19:41] attacks on the northern part of the front.
Fighting at locations such as Hill 86 and
[19:47] ‘Abasan was
inconclusive due to strong Egyptian defences,
[19:50] but it didn’t matter - these attacks were
a
[19:54] diversion. Egyptian commanders had concentrated
its forces just where the IDF wanted them
[20:00] to. 
Israel’s main thrust was to be made against
[20:04] fortifications at Bir Tamila and ‘Auja al-Hafir.
Despite initial problems due to inclement
[20:11] weather, the highly mobile Eighth and Negev
Brigades
[20:13] penetrated thin Egyptian lines with relative
ease. Aiming to execute a vast encirclement
[20:19] maneuver which would either trap the enemy
armies or force them to retreat, IDF units
[20:24] pushed
towards el-Arish and launched raids deep into
[20:27] the Sinai Peninsula. This was a stunning success
and Egypt’s defeated army was made to retreat
[20:34] into their own lands as far as Abu Ageila
in the
[20:36] centre and el-Arish in the north, else it
risked being cut off.
[20:42] However, diplomatic pressure from Britain
forced a withdrawal from Egyptian territory
[20:48] after one
final attack against Rafah, bottling the Egyptian
[20:52] army inside the Gaza Strip and capturing the
high ground around the town. By now, the Egyptian
[20:59] government had realised the threat its forces
faced and, on the 6th of January, announced
[21:04] its intention to enter peace negotiations.
On the
[21:07] following day, the guns on Israel’s southern
front fell silent. On February 24th, Israeli
[21:14] signed a
treaty ending hostilities, granting Egypt
[21:17] the Gaza Strip and Israel the Negev region.
Now the
[21:22] largest Arab nation had come to the table,
the others soon followed. Negotiations with
[21:28] Lebanon
began on March 3rd and were successfully concluded
[21:31] in three weeks - the international border
was respected and Israel would withdraw from
[21:36] any occupied Lebanese territory. Jordanian
talks
[21:40] concluded on April 3rd, with King Abdullah
retaining control of the West Bank and East
[21:46] Jerusalem. Finally, after some difficulties
due to internal strife, Syria signed an armistice
[21:52] on July
20th. This peace was tenuous, and the Israeli
[21:56] victory made future conflict in the region
inevitable.
[22:00] We are planning to cover more modern conflicts
both on the Kings and Generals and our second
[22:06] channel The Cold War – the link to which
you can find in the description or in the
[22:10] top right
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