Background
On October 6, 1973 Egypt launched Operation Badr intending to cross the Suez Canal and establish bridgeheads on the opposite bank of the Sinai Peninsula, occupied by Israel since 1967. Coordinated with a Syrian assault on the Golan Heights, the crossing achieved tactical surprise and was a success. Thereafter, counterattacks by Israeli reserves were unsuccessful. By October 10 fighting along the front had come to a lull. The Egyptians dug in and hoped to wear down the Israelis by means of attrition while remaining within range of their ground surface-to-air missiles, providing air cover from the west bank of the canal, while the Israelis focused on directing their main efforts against the Syrians in the Golan and reorganized their battered forces. Israeli failures led to the replacement of the chief of the Israeli Southern Command, Major General Shmuel Gonen, with Chaim Bar-Lev, although Gonen was retained as his aide.
The situation changed when Sadat, in the face of protests from his senior commanders, ordered an offensive to seize the strategic Sinai mountain passes, hoping to relieve Israeli pressure off the Syrians. The resulting offensive was ill-planned and ill-executed, culminating in heavy Egyptian losses without achieving any objectives. This allowed the Israelis the initiative to launch a counteroffensive.
On October 14, immediately following the Egyptian offensive, Israeli Chief of Staff David Elazar presented the general outlines of a crossing operation, of the Suez Canal to the west bank, to the Israeli cabinet in a meeting in Tel Aviv. Elazar emphasised the military and political gains of the operation, and the expected collapse that would occur in the Egyptian forces on the east bank when their supply routes were threatened. Elazar received unanimous support from the cabinet. Later that day Bar-Lev headed a meeting attended by the senior and main division commanders in the Sinai theatre: Major Generals Abraham Adan, Ariel Sharon and Kalman Magen. Bar-Lev informed the Israeli officers of the decision to begin the crossing operation on the night of October 15/16, and assigned duties and responsibilities to the division commanders.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of The Chinese Farm
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