The Valley of Tears (sometimes called Vale of Tears Battle, Hebrew: עֵמֶק הַבָּכָא, Emek HaBakha) is the name given to an area in the Golan Heights after it became the site of a major battle in the Yom Kippur War. On 6 October 1973 the Syrian 7th Infantry Division attacked the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade in the area between Mount Hermonit and a southern ridge known as "Booster" in Israel, or Tel el Mekhafi in Arabic.
The Syrians started the offensive with an artillery barrage, but failed to move tanks across the anti-tank ditch. They penetrated the Israeli defenses at night with the help of night vision equipment—equipment that the Israelis lacked. The next day, the Syrians mounted a second attack, and at one point in the engagement less than forty Israeli tanks were facing approximately 500 Syrian tanks.
On the fourth day, the 7th Brigade received a small reinforcement force when it was down to about a dozen tanks and almost out of ammunition. The Syrians retreated for reasons that are still debated.
Read more about Valley Of Tears: Background, Prelude, Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the words valley of, valley and/or tears:
“Jugful of milk! It was yours years ago
when I lived in the valley of my bones,
bones dumb in the swamp. Little playthings.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“I see before me now a traveling army halting,
Below a fertile valley spread, with barns and the orchards of summer,
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt, in places rising high,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all;
So doth each tear,
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow
This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.”
—John Donne (1572–1631)