Cease Fires Israel Has Known

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

  1948-1949 Independence WAR:  Jews right off of ships had to defend their new country in 1948.  The President Warfield, renamed the Exodus, arrived in Haifa in 1947 with nearly 5,000 Jewish immigrants on board. The ship was the largest illegal immigrant ship to arrive at the time.  One of the first ships to carry legal immigrants to Israel, the SS Negbah departed Amsterdam on October 6, 1948 with 670 passengers. The ship continued to make regular trips between Amsterdam and Haifa.  The Parita was an Aliyah Bet ship that carried 850 Jewish refugees and landed on a sandbank off the coast of Tel Aviv. The British arrested the passengers.  The Theodor Herzl was an Aliyah Bet ship where refugees carried the bodies of two passengers who had been killed.  The Kadima arrived in Haifa with 781 refugees. The ship was originally from Italy, and was supposed to meet up with the Albertina, which was carrying 182 refugees, at sea. However, the two ships never met up due to radio problems. They had no regular food, no training, no language-of speaking Hebrew then, but they fought harder than anyone for life.  

How many times has Israel been attacked since 1948?

Since that time, Israel has fought a number of conflicts with various Arab forces, most notably in 1948–49, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2006, and 2023–present.  These were actual wars;  War of Independence was the first.  Clashes broke out almost immediately between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, beginning with the Arab ambush of a bus carrying Jewish passengers from Netanya to Jerusalem on November 30, 1947 because On November 29, 1947, the United Nations (UN) voted to partition the British mandate of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state (see United Nations Resolution 181).  Arabs had been conditioned by Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, to hate and attack Jews.  

  Suez Crisis:  British occupation of Port Said :  British soldiers supervising a crowd in Port Said, Egypt, while food was distributed during the crisis.  November 12, 1956.  

 Suez Crisis of Sinai  Campaign was the next.  Nasser cozied up to Russia  and lead a pan-Arab movement with anti-Israel activities in military, economic and propaganda spheres.  He had an arms deal with Russia by 1955.  In October 1956 Israel invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. In five days the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) captured Gaza, Rafah, and Al-ʿArīsh—taking thousands of prisoners—and occupied most of the peninsula east of the Suez Canal. The Israelis were then in a position to open sea communications through the Gulf of Aqaba. In December, after the joint Anglo-French intervention, a UN Emergency Force was stationed in the area, and Israeli forces withdrew in March 1957.   Nasser was head of an Arab coalition against Israel which closed the Straits of Tiran to Israel shipping.  

Six-Day War in Gaza: Israeli armored troop unit entering Gaza during the Six-Day War, June 6, 1967.  This war seems to be the most important with long lasting affects.  With Israel winning this one against all the Arab countries attacking at the same time, they pouted and ran to Khartoum, Africa for a pow-wow about what to do about it and came up with NO, NO, NOs  recognition of Israel ever;   a rejection of Israel's right to exist.

Arab and Israeli forces clashed for the third time June 5–10, 1967, in what came to be called the Six-Day War (or June War). In early 1967 Syria intensified its bombardment of Israeli villages from positions in the Golan Heights. When the Israeli Air Force shot down six Syrian MiG fighter jets in reprisal, Nasser mobilized his forces near the Sinai border, dismissing the UN force there, and he again sought to blockade Eilat.  Israel almost reached Cairo in the 6 days.  

  Beware to those who start a war with Israel on their most holy day, Yom Kippur;  this is a picture of a  mosque in the Golan Heights damaged during the Yom Kippur War.

1973 Yom Kippur War:  The sporadic fighting that followed the Six-Day War again developed into full-scale war in 1973. On October 6, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur (thus, “Yom Kippur War”), Israel was caught off guard by Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal and by Syrian forces crossing into the Golan Heights.  The fighting, which lasted through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, came to an end on October 26. Israel signed a formal cease-fire agreement with Egypt on November 11, 1973 and with Syria on May 31, 1974.

                      Arafat of PLO terrorists leaves Lebanon

1982 Lebanon War:  On June 5, 1982, less than six weeks after Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Sinai, increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians resulted in the Israeli bombing of Beirut and southern Lebanon, where the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had a number of strongholds. The following day Israel invaded Lebanon, and by June 14 its land forces reached as far as the outskirts of Beirut, which was encircled, but the Israeli government agreed to halt its advance and begin negotiations with the PLO. .....Israeli troops withdrew from west Beirut, and the Israeli army had withdrawn from areas north of the Līṭāni River by June 1985. Hezbollah, a militant group that formed as a militia to resist the Israeli invasion in 1982, continued to engage in a guerrilla campaign against Israeli forces until they withdrew fully in May 2000.

Bombing of Beirut, July 2006Buildings destroyed by Israeli bombs in Beirut, July 2006.

2006 Second Lebanon War:  After Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah continued to press Israel over border disputes and Israel’s detention of Lebanese prisoners. On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into northern Israel, diverting the IDF’s attention as Hezbollah fighters infiltrated the border, killing several Israeli soldiers and capturing two others in an attempt to pressure Israel into releasing Lebanese prisoners.                                                 

       Aftermath of the October 7, 2023, attackSurvivors of a Hamas rocket strike on Tel Aviv talking with rescuers on October 7, 2023.

2023–present: Israel-Hamas Wars:  On October 7, 2023, Hamas led the most brutal assault against Israel since its independence, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 240 others hostage. The attack, which caught Israeli forces off guard on the solemn Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, occurred under the shadow of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War;  again hitting Israel during a holy time.  At the end of the year Israel faced tremendous international pressure to ease its offensive, and in February a rift emerged between Israel and the United States, Israel’s most important source of international support. Meanwhile, efforts to reach a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas continued, although Hamas refused to accept any proposal that did not guarantee a permanent end to hostilities and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.  Israel also needed the guarantees from the aggressor terrorists far more than they needed them from Israel.  That was an OY VEY statement at the least!                

Israel-Hamas WarDestruction in the Jabalia refugee camp from an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip on November 1, 2023.

In between these wars have been other wars too numerous for me to list of constant attacking Israel. The worst was that the Jewish population was getting used to it;  accepting it as a part of life-that of being hit !  For some there have been cease fires, no doubt.   

Here's a past example of what happens when Israel tried to appease the world.  

• 2014 Gaza War or Operation Protective Edge (July–August 2014) – Military offensive on the Gaza Strip as a response to the collapse of American-sponsored peace talks, attempts by rival Palestinian factions to form a coalition government, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, the subsequent kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teenager, and increased rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas militants.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.britannica.com/event/Arab-Israeli-wars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khartoum_Resolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Israel