List of wars involving Israel

This is a list of wars and other major military engagements involving Israel. Since its declaration of independence in May 1948, the State of Israel has fought various wars with its neighbouring Arab states, two major Palestinian Arab uprisings known as the First Intifada and the Second Intifada (see Israeli–Palestinian conflict), and a broad series of other armed engagements rooted in the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Wars and other conflicts

Israel has been involved in a number of wars and large-scale military operations, including:

Table

Conflicts considered as wars by the Israeli Ministry of Defense (as they were named by Israel in small text) are marked in bold.

Conflict Combatant 1 Combatant 2 Results Israeli commanders Israeli losses
Israeli Prime Minister Defense Minister of Israel Chief of Staff of the IDF IDF
forces
Civilians
1948 Palestine war

War of Independence
(1947–1949)

Yishuv
(before 14 May 1948)
 Israel
(after 14 May 1948)

Before 26 May 1948:


After 26 May 1948:


Foreign volunteers:

Arab Higher Committee
(before 15 May 1948)
 Arab League
(after 15 May 1948)

 United Kingdom

Victory David Ben-Gurion Yaakov Dori 4,074[7] ~2,000[7]
Suez Crisis

Sinai War
(1956)

 Israel
United Kingdom United Kingdom
France France
Egypt Egypt Victory Moshe Dayan 231 None
Six-Day War
(1967)
 Israel Egypt
 Syria
 Jordan
Iraq[8]
Minor involvement:
 Lebanon[9]
Victory Levi Eshkol Moshe Dayan Yitzhak Rabin 776–983 20
War of Attrition
(1967–1970)
 Israel

Inconclusive Golda Meir Haim Bar-Lev 1,424[15] 227[16]
Yom Kippur War
(1973)
 Israel Victory[25]
  • At the final ceasefire:
  • Egyptian forces held 1,200 km2 (460 sq mi) on the eastern bank of the canal.[26]
  • Israeli forces held 1,600 km2 (620 sq mi) on the western bank of the canal.[27]
  • Israeli forces held 500 km2 (193 sq mi) of the Syrian Bashan region of the Golan Heights.
1978 South Lebanon conflict

Operation Litani
(1978)

 Israel
SLA
PLO Victory Menachem Begin Ezer Weizman Mordechai Gur 18 None
1982 Lebanon War

First Lebanon War / Operation Peace Galilee
(1982)

Inconclusive Ariel Sharon Rafael Eitan 657 2–3
South Lebanon conflict

Security Zone Campagin
(1982–2000)

Hezbollah-led victory[41] Shimon Peres Yitzhak Rabin Moshe Levi 559 7
First Intifada
(1987–1993)
 Israel Palestinian Uprising suppressed[43] Yitzhak Shamir Dan Shomron 60 100
Second Intifada
(2000–2005)
 Israel Victory Ariel Sharon Shaul Mofaz Moshe Ya'alon 301 773
2006 Lebanon War

Second Lebanon War / Operation Just Reward
(2006)

 Israel Hezbollah
Allies:
Inconclusive Ehud Olmert Amir Peretz Dan Halutz 121 44
Gaza War

Operation Cast Lead
(2008–2009)

Victory Ehud Barak Gabi Ashkenazi 10 3
Gaza War

Operation Pillar of Defense
(2012)

 Israel Ceasefire
  • both sides claim victory[57][58][59]
  • According to Israel, the operation "severely impaired Hamas's launching capabilities."[60]
  • According to Hamas, their rocket strikes led to the ceasefire deal[61]
  • Cessation of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.[62]
  • Gaza fishermen allowed 6 nmi (11 km) out to sea for fishing;[63] reduced back to 3 nmi (6 km) after 22 March 2013[64]
Benjamin Netanyahu Benny Gantz 2 4
Gaza War

Operation Protective Edge
(2014)

 Israel Both sides claim victory
  • According to Hamas, Israel was repelled from Gaza[70]
  • According to Israel, Hamas was severely weakened and achieved none of its demands[71]
Moshe Ya'alon 67 6
Israel–Palestine crisis

(2021)


Jewish Israeli protesters


Protesters in Israel and Palestine
Jordanian, Lebanese, and Syrian protesters (see international)
Victory claimed by both sides Benny Gantz Aviv Kochavi 1 14
Gaza war

Operation Iron Swords (2023–present)

 Israel[c]  Hamas
Ongoing Yoav Gallant (until November 2024)

Israel Katz (currently)

Herzi Halevi 978+ 956+
Israel–Hezbollah conflict

Operation Northern Arrows (2023–2024)

 Israel  Hezbollah[76]
Israeli victory[84] 65+ 19+

Other armed conflicts involving the IDF

See also

References

  1. ^ "Q&A: Israel-Gaza violence". BBC News. 19 November 2012.
  2. ^ "Israel and Hamas Trade Attacks as Tension Rises". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
  3. ^ Nisan, Mordechai (2015). Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self-Expression, 2d ed. McFarland. p. 284. ISBN 978-0-7864-5133-3. This Jewish-Druze partnership was often referred to as a "covenant of blood," in recognition of the common military yoke carried by the two peoples for the security of the country.
  4. ^ "The Druze in Israel: Questions of Identity, Citizenship, and Patriotism" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  5. ^ Palestine Post, "Israel's Bedouin Warriors", Gene Dison, August 12, 1948
  6. ^ AFP (24 April 2013). "Bedouin army trackers scale Israel social ladder". Al Arabiya. Archived from the original on 31 March 2022. Retrieved 7 May 2015.
  7. ^ a b Sandler, Stanley (2002). Ground Warfare: An International Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-57607-344-5.
  8. ^ Krauthammer, Charles (18 May 2007). "Prelude to the Six Days". The Washington Post. p. A23. ISSN 0740-5421. Archived from the original on 24 July 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2008.
  9. ^ Oren (2002), p. 237.
  10. ^ Arnold, Guy (2016). Wars in the Third World Since 1945. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 299. ISBN 978-1-4742-9101-9.
  11. ^ "Milestones: 1961–1968". Office of the Historian. Archived from the original on 23 October 2018. Retrieved 30 November 2018. Between June 5 and June 10, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights
  12. ^ Weill, Sharon (2007). "The judicial arm of the occupation: the Israeli military courts in the occupied territories". International Review of the Red Cross. 89 (866): 401. doi:10.1017/s1816383107001142. ISSN 1816-3831. S2CID 55988443. On 7 June 1967, the day the occupation started, Military Proclamation No. 2 was issued, endowing the area commander with full legislative, executive, and judicial authorities over the West Bank and declaring that the law in force prior to the occupation remained in force as long as it did not contradict new military orders.
  13. ^ Tucker, Spencer; Roberts, Priscilla (2008). The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. p. 596. ISBN 978-1-85109-842-2.
  14. ^ "The War: Lebanon and Syria". Dover.idf.il. Archived from the original on March 24, 2012. Retrieved March 12, 2013.
  15. ^ Lorch, Netanel (2 September 2003). "The Arab-Israeli Wars". Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original on 9 March 2007. Retrieved 3 March 2007.
  16. ^ Schiff, Zeev, A History of the Israeli Army (1870–1974), Straight Arrow Books (San Francisco, 1974) p. 246, ISBN 0-87932-077-X
  17. ^ O'Ballance (1979).
  18. ^ Shazly (2003), p. 278.
  19. ^ Rabinovich (2004), pp. 464–465.
  20. ^ Hussain, Hamid (November 2002). "Opinion: The Fourth round – A Critical Review of 1973 Arab–Israeli War". Defence Journal. Archived from the original on 16 January 2009.
  21. ^ Mahjoub Tobji (2006). Les officiers de Sa Majesté: Les dérives des généraux marocains 1956–2006 (in French). Fayard. p. 107. ISBN 978-2-213-63015-1.
  22. ^ Ra'anan, G. D. (1981). The Evolution of the Soviet Use of Surrogates in Military Relations with the Third World, with Particular Emphasis on Cuban Participation in Africa. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation. p. 37
  23. ^ Shazly (2003), pp. 83–84.
  24. ^ Cenciotti, David. "Israeli F-4s Actually Fought North Korean MiGs During the Yom Kippur War". Business Insider.
  25. ^ References:
    • Herzog, The War of Atonement, Little, Brown and Company, 1975. Forward
    • Insight Team of the London Sunday Times, Yom Kippur War, Doubleday and Company, Inc, 1974, page 450
    • Luttwak and Horowitz, The Israeli Army. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Abt Books, 1983
    • Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War, Schocken Books, 2004. Page 498
    • Revisiting The Yom Kippur War, P. R. Kumaraswamy, pages 1–2 ISBN 0-313-31302-4
    • Johnson and Tierney, Failing To Win, Perception of Victory and Defeat in International Politics. Page 177
    • Charles Liebman, The Myth of Defeat: The Memory of the Yom Kippur war in Israeli Society[permanent dead link] Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 29, No. 3, July 1993. Published by Frank Cass, London. Page 411.
  26. ^ Rabinovich (2004), p. 467.
  27. ^ Morris (2011), p. 437.
  28. ^ "In the Spotlight: PKK (A.k.a KADEK) Kurdish Worker's Party". Cdi.org. Archived from the original on 13 August 2011. Retrieved 29 February 2012.
  29. ^ "Abdullah Öcalan en de ontwikkeling van de PKK". Xs4all.nl. Archived from the original on 15 December 2010. Retrieved 29 February 2012.
  30. ^ "a secret relationship". Niqash.org. Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 29 February 2012.
  31. ^ Eligar Sadeh Militarization and State Power in the Arab–Israeli Conflict: Case Study of Israel, 1948–1982 Universal-Publishers, 1997 p.119.
  32. ^ Naor, Dan; Lewin, Eyal (3 April 2023). "Was the 1982 Lebanon War a Deviation from Israeli Security Doctrine?". The Journal of the Middle East and Africa. 14 (2): 219–244. doi:10.1080/21520844.2023.2171652. ISSN 2152-0844.
  33. ^ Schulze, Kristen E. (1 January 1996). "Perceptions and Misperceptions: Influences on Israeli Intelligence Estimates During the 1982 Lebanon War". Journal of Conflict Studies. ISSN 1715-5673. The failure of the invasion can be seen as the result of a number of misconceptions by the Israelis. The most prominent misconceptions underlying Israel's policy were: that Lebanon had a Christian majority, that the position of the president was a strong one, that the Lebanese Forces were powerful, that the Maronites wanted a Christian state, that the Maronite faction they were liaising with represented all Maronites, and that the Maronites were reliable.
  34. ^ Katz, Andrew Z. (1 July 2017), 5 Israel's 1982 Invasion of Lebanon to Secure Peace in the Galilee, Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 135–162, doi:10.1515/9781626376687-007, ISBN 978-1-62637-668-7, retrieved 26 September 2024, The failure of Operation Peace of [sic] Galilee to achieve its objective prevailed upon the new national coalition government, which took office in 1984, to withdraw forthwith from Lebanon.
  35. ^ "Israel's 3-Year War in Lebanon Ends, But Some Troops Remain Behind". Washington Post. 6 June 1985. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 26 September 2024. In the latest poll, in May, 36 percent of the public still said it was right to launch the war in 1982 and 60 percent said it was wrong. Significantly, 75 percent said the war was a failure.
  36. ^ Kainikara, Sanu (2007). "Pathways to Victory: Observations from the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah Conflict" (PDF). The failure of the political objectives of Operation Peace for Galilee highlights a significant disconnect in Israel's execution of the conflict. In the opinion of John Garofano, Israel's political leaders, especially Ariel Sharon, had overestimated the time available and underestimated the cost in lives to achieve these goals. Corroborating this view, Shlomo Gazit, a former head of Israeli military intelligence says that both Begin and Sharon 'chose to isolate themselves from their intelligence advisors and never evinced the slightest doubt that they could achieve their objective'. As the siege of Beirut continued, Sharon's ability to direct IDF operations was gradually restricted by his cabinet colleagues to the point that he could only issue piecemeal orders. Meanwhile, the IDF suffered large numbers of casualties in fierce urban fighting and later became bogged down in two decades of a low-intensity war against Hezbollah that it could not win
  37. ^ Hertling, Mark. "What I Learned from Watching the Israeli Army". www.thebulwark.com. Retrieved 26 September 2024. In 1982, the IDF were initially successful, but changes in government policy and civilian leaders' strategic objectives caused mission creep, dysfunction, and eventual failure to achieve military goals. Israel withdrew its forces to the border areas by 1985, and withdrew further to the international boundary in 2000.
  38. ^ Khalidi, Rashid (4 January 2014). Under Siege: PLO Decisionmaking During the 1982 War. Columbia University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-231-53595-3. However, the failure of "Operation Peace for Galilee" goes far beyond the objectives implied by the war's shrewdly chosen code name, since those who planned it had set their sights much farther afield.
  39. ^ Hammes, Thomas X. (17 February 2006). The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century. Voyageur Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-7603-2407-3. Adding to their frustration was the most recent and only failure of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF): Operation Peace for Galilee, the ill-fated invasion of Lebanon.
  40. ^ References:
    • Armies in Lebanon 1982–84, Samuel Katz and Lee E. Russell, Osprey Men-At-Arms series No. 165, 1985
    • Hirst, David (2010). Beware of Small States. NationBooks. pp. 144–145. ISBN 978-1-56858-657-1. In time, however, Arafat and his guerrilla leadership decided that they would have to withdraw, leaving no military and very little political or symbolic presence behind. Their enemy's firepower and overall strategic advantage were too great and it was apparently ready to use them to destroy the whole city over the heads of its inhabitants. The rank and file did not like this decision, and there were murmurings of 'treason' from some of Arafat's harsher critics. Had they not already held out, far longer than any Arab country in any former war, against all that the most powerful army in the Middle East – and the fourth most powerful in the world, according to Sharon – could throw against them? (...) But [Palestinians] knew that, if they expected too much, they could easily lose [Lebanese Muslim support] again. 'If this had been Jerusalem', they said, 'we would have stayed to the end. But Beirut is not outs to destroy.
  41. ^ References:
  42. ^
  43. ^ Kober, Avi, Israel's Wars of Attrition: Attrition Challenges to Democratic States, p. 165
  44. ^ Murphy, Kim (10 September 1993). "Israel and PLO, in Historic Bid for Peace, Agree to Mutual Recognition". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  45. ^ Sources:
  46. ^ Herbert Docena (17 August 2006). "Amid the bombs, unity is forged". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 31 August 2006. Retrieved 25 November 2011. The LCP ... has itself been very close to Hezbollah and fought alongside it in the frontlines in the south. According to Hadadeh, at least 12 LCP members and supporters died in the fighting.
  47. ^ "PFLP claims losses in IDF strike on Lebanon base". The Jerusalem Post. Associated Press. 6 August 2006. Archived from the original on 3 February 2012.
  48. ^ Klein, Aaron (27 July 2006). "Iranian soldiers join Hizbullah in fighting". Ynet. Archived from the original on 20 September 2019. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  49. ^ Worth, Robert F. (15 November 2006). "U.N. Says Somalis Helped Hezbollah Fighters". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 26 October 2023. More than 700 Islamic militants from Somalia traveled to Lebanon in July to fight alongside Hezbollah in its war against Israel, a United Nations report says. The militia in Lebanon returned the favor by providing training and — through its patrons Iran and Syria — weapons to the Islamic alliance struggling for control of Somalia, it adds.
  50. ^ "Report: Over 700 Somalis fought with Hizbullah". The Jerusalem Post. 15 November 2006. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  51. ^ "Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report – January 2, 2009 as of 14:30" (PDF). United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. 2 January 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 January 2009. Retrieved 2 January 2009.
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  84. ^
  1. ^ Sources:[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]
  2. ^ Besides Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, FDD's Long War Journal identified the following militant groups as having fought in the 2021 conflict: Jihad Jibril Brigades, Humat al-Aqsa, Jaysh al-Ummah, Katibat al-Sheikh al-Emireen, Mujahideen Brigades, Abdul al-Qadir al-Husseini Brigades, and two al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades splinter factions.[75]
  3. ^ See List of military aid to Israel during the Gaza war and American involvement

Bibliography