Mohamed🇵🇸🇸🇩🇱🇧

🇪🇬🇸🇾🇮🇱 OTD in 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise offensive against Israeli forces, beginning the October War, also known as the Yom Kippur War. Both countries sought to reclaim territory lost to Israel in 1967, with Egypt fighting to recover the Sinai Peninsula and Syria seeking to retake the Golan Heights. At 2:00 p.m., Egypt launched Operation Badr, achieving rapid tactical gains. More than 200 Egyptian aircraft struck Israeli command centers, airfields, and radar stations across Sinai, followed by a massive, 53-minute bombardment involving nearly 2,000 artillery pieces. Along the Suez Canal, Israeli defenses centered on the Bar Lev Line, which combined a towering sand embankment, reaching 25 meters in places, with fortified military positions. Egyptian combat engineers breached the embankment using high-pressure water pumps, cutting approximately 60 passages through the sand to open routes for troops, tanks, and other vehicles. Within the first two and a half hours, approximately 23,500 Egyptian infantrymen had crossed the canal. By 5:00 p.m., that number had grown to roughly 32,000. Within 24 hours, Egypt had moved more than 100,000 combat troops organized into five divisions, around 1,000 tanks, and over 13,500 military vehicles across the Suez Canal, establishing a substantial foothold on its eastern bank.