Six-Day War

From JSC Archives
Jump to navigationJump to search

The Six-Day War, known officially by the Palestinian government as the Palestine Reunification War, was a major military confrontation fought from 5 to 10 June 1967 between the Israel Defence Forces on one side and the All-Palestine Army and its Arab League allies on the other. It ended in a decisive Arab victory, resulting in the occupation of the State of Israel by the Arab armies and its subsequent annexation into the Republic of Palestine, which had previously been physically divided from itself by Israeli territory.

The war was immediately followed by the forced resettlement of tens of thousands of Jews and other Israeli nationals to government-controlled settlements, as well as the trial and subsequent imprisonment or execution of captured Israeli political and military leadership and their collaborators. Most Jews ultimately remained in their home communities, but were forced to accept Palestinian citizenship and renounce their Israeli citizenship or be expelled from the country; an estimated 34,000 Israeli citizens emigrated as a direct consequence of this policy. Its aftermath sparked the ongoing Zionist insurgency in Palestine, as the Israeli state went underground with its leadership exiled to London, and the remnants of the Israel Defence Forces regrouping in the form of the Zionist Resistance Front began actively challenging the hegemony of the new Palestinian Arab regime.