Yom Kippur War 1973: Surprise Attack and the Oil Embargo

The Yom Kippur War, also called the October War or Ramadan War, was fought from 6 to 25 October 1973 between Israel and a coalition led by Egypt and Syria. It began with a coordinated surprise attack on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar and became one of the largest armoured conflicts since the Second World War. The war brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to direct confrontation and triggered an Arab oil embargo that shook the world economy.

Background

In the Six-Day War of June 1967 Israel had taken the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. A bitter War of Attrition along the Suez Canal followed until a ceasefire in August 1970. Israel fortified the east bank of the canal with a chain of strongpoints known as the Bar Lev Line.

Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt after Gamal Abdel Nasser’s death in September 1970. He offered a peace arrangement in 1971 in return for Israeli withdrawal, but the talks led nowhere. Sadat concluded that only a war, even a limited one, could break the diplomatic deadlock and force the United States to engage. In July 1972 he expelled most Soviet military advisers, which many observers wrongly read as a sign that Egypt could not fight.

Sadat planned the attack with Syria’s president, Hafez al-Assad, who wanted to recover the Golan Heights. Egypt rebuilt its forces with Soviet weapons, especially surface-to-air missiles and portable anti-tank missiles, designed to blunt Israel’s air force and armour.

The intelligence failure

Israeli military intelligence held to what was later called “the Concept”: the belief that Egypt would not go to war until it had long-range bombers able to strike Israel’s air bases, and that Syria would not fight alone. Large Egyptian exercises near the canal were read as routine.

Warnings did arrive. King Hussein of Jordan met Golda Meir secretly in late September, and in the early hours of 6 October the Egyptian informant Ashraf Marwan told his Mossad handler that war would start that day. Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered a large mobilisation of reserves but, advised by Defence Minister Moshe Dayan and mindful of world opinion, decided against a pre-emptive air strike.

What happened: the first days

At about 2 p.m. on 6 October 1973, Egyptian artillery and aircraft struck along the canal while Syrian forces attacked on the Golan Heights. In Operation Badr, Egyptian engineers used high-pressure water cannon to cut gaps in the sand ramparts of the Bar Lev Line and threw pontoon bridges across the canal. Within about a day, tens of thousands of Egyptian troops and hundreds of tanks were on the east bank, protected by a dense umbrella of missiles.

Israeli counter-attacks by tanks without enough infantry support ran into Egyptian infantry armed with Sagger anti-tank missiles. A major Israeli counter-offensive in Sinai on 8 October failed with heavy losses. The Israeli air force also lost many aircraft to Egyptian and Syrian missile defences.

On the Golan, roughly 1,400 Syrian tanks attacked against fewer than 200 Israeli tanks at first. Syrian forces broke through in the south and came close to the edge of the plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee. In the north, a small Israeli armoured force held the line in the battle later remembered as the Valley of Tears.

The Israeli counter-offensive

Israeli reserves reached the Golan within days and pushed the Syrians back to the 1967 ceasefire line by 10 October. Israeli forces then advanced further, coming within artillery range of Damascus. Iraqi and Jordanian units arrived to support Syria and helped to halt the advance.

In Sinai, Egypt launched a large armoured attack on 14 October beyond its missile umbrella, partly to relieve pressure on Syria. It failed with heavy losses in one of the biggest tank battles of the war. On the night of 15–16 October, Israeli forces under General Ariel Sharon found a gap between two Egyptian armies and crossed the canal near Deversoir, after fierce fighting at the so-called Chinese Farm. Israeli armour spread out on the west bank, destroyed missile sites and moved to encircle the Egyptian Third Army.

Superpowers and the ceasefire

Both superpowers supplied their allies by air. The Soviet Union began an airlift to Egypt and Syria, and on 14 October the United States began Operation Nickel Grass, flying tanks, ammunition and aircraft to Israel.

On 22 October the UN Security Council passed Resolution 338, calling for a ceasefire and negotiations based on Resolution 242. Fighting continued and Israeli forces completed the encirclement of the Third Army. The Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev warned that the Soviet Union might act alone, and on 24–25 October US forces were placed on a higher state of nuclear alert (DEFCON 3). Under heavy US pressure, Israel allowed supplies through to the trapped Egyptian army, and the ceasefire took hold on 25 October. A new UN force, UNEF II, was sent to separate the armies.

The oil embargo

On 17 October 1973 Arab oil ministers, meeting in Kuwait as the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, agreed to cut production month by month until Israel withdrew from the occupied territories. After President Richard Nixon asked Congress for 2.2 billion dollars in emergency aid to Israel, Saudi Arabia and other producers imposed a full embargo on the United States; the Netherlands was also targeted.

At the same time, Gulf members of OPEC raised the posted price of oil sharply, first on 16 October and again in December. The price rose roughly fourfold, from about 3 dollars a barrel before the war to almost 12 dollars by January 1974. Western countries faced fuel shortages, petrol queues, car-free Sundays in several European countries and a deep recession combined with inflation. The embargo against the United States was lifted in March 1974.

Key people

Anwar Sadat (1918–1981), president of Egypt, planned the war as a means to a political end and later made peace with Israel. He was assassinated in 1981.

Hafez al-Assad (1930–2000), president of Syria, joined the attack to regain the Golan Heights, which remained under Israeli control after the war.

Golda Meir (1898–1978), prime minister of Israel, led the country through the war but resigned in April 1974 amid public anger over the lack of preparation.

Moshe Dayan (1915–1981), defence minister, shared in the blame for the surprise. Ariel Sharon (1928–2014) led the canal crossing and later became prime minister.

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023), US national security adviser and secretary of state, managed the airlift, the ceasefire and the shuttle diplomacy that followed.

Consequences

Israel’s Agranat Commission investigated the failures before the war and blamed senior commanders; the chief of staff, David Elazar, resigned in April 1974. Public criticism helped bring about Meir’s resignation and, in the longer run, the end of the Labour Party’s dominance in 1977.

Kissinger’s “shuttle diplomacy” produced a first Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement in January 1974, a Syrian-Israeli agreement in May 1974 and a second Sinai agreement in 1975. Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 led to the Camp David Accords and to the 1979 peace treaty, under which Israel returned the whole of Sinai by 1982.

The oil shock ended the long post-war boom in the West, encouraged energy saving, nuclear power and North Sea oil development, and transferred enormous wealth to oil-producing states.

Myths and facts

Myth: Israel had no warning at all. Israel received several warnings, including on the morning of the attack, but its leaders misjudged them and mobilised late.

Myth: Egypt simply lost. Egypt ended the war with an army trapped across the canal, yet Sadat achieved his main aim: breaking the stalemate and opening negotiations that returned Sinai.

Myth: the embargo alone caused the price rise. Prices were already rising in a tight market, and OPEC’s price decisions mattered at least as much as the embargo itself.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1973, 6 October: Egypt and Syria attack on Yom Kippur; Egyptian forces cross the Suez Canal.
• 1973, 8 October: An Israeli counter-attack in Sinai fails.
• 1973, 10 October: Israel pushes Syrian forces back to the 1967 line on the Golan.
• 1973, 14 October: Egypt’s armoured offensive fails; the US airlift to Israel begins.
• 1973, 15–16 October: Israeli forces cross to the west bank of the canal.
• 1973, 17 October: Arab oil producers announce production cuts.
• 1973, 22 October: UN Security Council Resolution 338 calls for a ceasefire.
• 1973, 24–25 October: US nuclear alert; the ceasefire takes hold.
• 1974, 18 January: First Egyptian-Israeli disengagement agreement.

Why it matters

The Yom Kippur War shattered the belief that Israel’s military superiority made its position secure, and it showed the Arab states that oil could be a political weapon. Paradoxically, the shock of the war on both sides made the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty possible. Its economic aftershock, the oil crisis, marked the end of an era of cheap energy in the West.