Yom Kippur War: IDF chief ignored pre-warning about Egyptian artillery
“Everyone one of the forts on the [Suez] Canal, as far as potential from
the enemy, could be hit easily with 5,000 shells per hour.”
By Yonah Jeremy Bob
Former IDF chief of staff Haim Bar-Lev ignored warnings in 1972 that
forts along the Sinai defense-line with Egypt could have been easily hit
with 5,000 shells per hour. That’s according to classified material
disclosed by the Defense Ministry on the eve of the 45th anniversary of
the Yom Kippur War. Those forts were later named after him.
The warnings came on May 29, 1972, from IDF Operations Command Maj.-Gen.
Yisrael Tal, who said that, “every one of the forts on the [Suez]
Canal, as far as potential from the enemy, could be hit easily with
5,000 shells per hour” by Egyptian forces.He continued to say that, “it
is not just a question about a given fort being destroyed. Rather, even
if the fort is not destroyed, the people [soldiers] there will never
fight again – because of the shock, the gas” and other harm from the
attack.“We have not risked exploring this [scenario], and we cannot wait
until the first test and only afterward evacuate the forts… my point of
reference for nixing the forts is that it is an awful trap… And it can
happen in one hour. And if it happens in one day to four or five forts,
it would be a national disaster,” he added.
Tal’s opposition and that of then-Maj.-Gen. Ariel Sharon to the Bar Lev
line, which served as the heart of Israel’s defense strategy against
Egypt, had been known before the latest disclosures. At the time, both
men were overruled anyway.
This is the first time that the Defense Ministry publicized portions of
the May 29, 1972 and October 5, 1973 classified IDF High Command
meetings. It is also the first commentary on Tal’s alternative strategy
document and critique of the Bar Lev line from 1970.Tal and Sharon’s
warnings were eventually far more accurate than Bar Lev and the majority
IDF High Command’s estimate that the defense line would hold long
enough for them to have 24 to 48 hours to reinforce the line with
reserves.
Investing so much faith in the Bar Lev defense line has been
retrospectively uniformly judged a devastating intelligence failure,
which led to the Egyptian rout of Israeli forces in the early days of
the war.That failure was later salvaged by a hugely successful Israeli
counter-attack, but the lessons learned are what continue to pressure
the IDF and Israeli intelligence through to the present day.
Regarding Tal’s 1970 alternative strategy document, he said that the
Suez Canal should be patrolled day and night by two brigades of troop
carriers and tanks in regular movement.
However, he rejected leaving command centers or extensive defense
positions that would be stagnant in any area that might be within the
range of Egypt’s artillery. Tal also held that the defense line of
immovable forts should be defended more modestly.
IDF intelligence chief Eli Zeira was quoted talking about suspicious
USSR troop movements during an October 5, 1973 IDF High Command meeting.
In addition to updating the IDF High Command on aggressive military
drills and troop movements by Egypt and Syria since September 5, 1973,
he said that “the Russians have sent 11 transport aircrafts to Egypt and
Syria.”
Elaborating, he said that it was unclear what the purpose of these
transport planes were, but that it seemed to be an effort “to remove
Russian personnel from those states. If so, the question is why and we
have no clear explanation as to why.”
He added that, “most of the Soviet naval vessels have left Alexandria. This is also a very very rare thing.”
But at the end of the day, Zeira said that “all of these things do not
change IDF intelligence’s basic estimate that the chances of Egypt and
Syria initiating a war is still very low…even lower than low.”
Zeira has been criticized for ignoring troop movement signs (Russian
evacuations could have signaled that they wanted their forces out of the
area before an impending war) and other possible warnings of war.
Finally, IDF Logistics Command Maj. Gen. Nehemiah Kayin warned the
meeting that there were insufficient food provisions for IDF forces in
the event of a war.
Then-IDF chief-of-staff David Elazar (who had replaced Bar-Lev)
responded, “If there are not enough war rations, then they will fast. At
the end of the day, it is Yom Kippur. We fast.”
Also on Monday, the National Archives disclosed an actual Mossad cable
from the then-Mossad Director Zvi Zamir to then Prime Minister Golda
Meir suggesting that she weigh leaking to the media that Israel knew
Egypt was about to start a war.
Zamir’s idea was that possibly leaking this to the media before the war
started might give Egypt pause and avert the impending war that he had
been told about by top secret Israeli spy Ashraf Marwan – the son-in-law
of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
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