Battle of Suez - Prelude

Prelude

At 2:00 AM, General Shmuel Gonen called Adan and asked him if he could capture Suez in the two to two and half hours between dawn and the ceasefire. Adan answered that it depended on the Egyptian defenses in the town, but that he thought that at least part of the town can be taken. Gonen said: "Okay, if it's Beersheba, go ahead; if it's Stalingrad, don't do it!", referring to Operation Yoav and the Battle of Stalingrad, respectively. Adan gave his orders accordingly. Israel argued that the attack would not be a violation of the ceasefire if it was launched before 7:00 AM, even if the battle continued after that hour, since the Arabs were the ones who chose when to start the war and when to call for a ceasefire. Israel also claimed that the ceasefire did not apply to "mopping up" operations that were altering the rear areas and not the front line. Intelligence knew of a commando battalion, two infantry battalions and an antitank missile company. Since Egyptian soldiers had been mostly surrendering during the previous two days, Adan assumed the defenders of Suez would not resist.

An armored brigade, under the command of Colonel Aryeh Keren, had set up its headquarters west of Suez. Keren was in charge of the attack and ordered Yossi Yoffe to lead the attack with his reserve paratroopers using nine captured Soviet APCs, and drive up the main street of the town. He said the confidence based on which he was being sent was groundless. He said he had only one small map and had seen no air photos and asked for time to draw a plan. Adan pressured Keren to capture Suez before the arrival of the observers, and Keren told Yoffe that "in the armored corps, we take our orders while we're on the move", and gave thirty minutes to organize. A tank battalion, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Nahum Zaken was to lead the attack with its own infantry detachment, while Yoffe was to follow and leave platoons to secure the intersections.