The Sinai Campaign (Operation Kadesh)
In eight days Israel took the whole Sinai Peninsula, then returned it under American and Soviet pressure.
By 5716 the south had become untenable: fedayeen squads crossed constantly from Gaza and had killed hundreds over several years. Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, cutting off the port of Eilat, and nationalised the Suez Canal, quarrelling with Britain and France.
On 29 October 5717 the IDF launched Operation Kadesh. Paratroopers under Ariel Sharon landed near the Mitla Pass and armoured columns drove across Sinai. In eight days the entire peninsula and the Gaza Strip were taken and the Straits of Tiran reopened. A hundred and seventy-two Israeli soldiers were killed.
The political outcome reversed the military one. The United States and the Soviet Union demanded immediate withdrawal, Moscow with open threats. By March 5717 Israel had left Sinai in exchange for international guarantees of free navigation and a UN force on the border. Those guarantees lasted ten years and collapsed in May 5727, when Nasser expelled the UN troops and closed the straits again — the direct road to the Six-Day War.
For the first time in many centuries a Jewish army crossed the Sinai desert, over the ground the people had walked after the Exodus. Nearly every Israeli newspaper of the day noted it.