When was Operation Horev?

It began on 22 December 1948 and ended with a cease-fire in early January 1949, in force by 9 January.

Who commanded Operation Horev?

Yigal Allon, commander of the Israeli Southern Front, with the Negev, Harel, Golani and 8th Armored Brigades.

Why did Israeli forces leave Sinai in 1949?

Britain warned it might act under its treaty with Egypt, and the United States pressed Israel to withdraw. Israeli forces pulled back from Egyptian territory in early January.

What happened to the RAF during Operation Horev?

On 7 January 1949 Israeli aircraft shot down five British planes. Israeli and British accounts differ on what the planes were doing; the incident added to the pressure for a cease-fire.

What did Operation Horev achieve?

It drove the Egyptian army out of the Negev and brought Egypt to armistice talks on the island of Rhodes.

Operation Horev, 1948: Israel drives the Egyptian army out of the Negev

Quick answer

What was Operation Horev?

Operation Horev was the Israeli offensive against the Egyptian army in the Negev at the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, from 22 December 1948 to early January 1949. Under Yigal Allon, Israeli brigades feinted toward Gaza, broke the Egyptian line at Nitzana and drove south into Sinai as far as Abu Ageila and the approaches to El Arish. American and British pressure forced them back across the border, and the fighting ended in a cease-fire that led to the armistice talks on Rhodes.¹

By the end of 1948 the war that followed the creation of Israel had turned against the Arab armies. In the south, Egyptian forces still held the coastal strip from Gaza to Rafah and a line of positions in the Negev desert. The history database of the Palmach, the Israeli strike force whose brigades did much of the fighting, describes two Egyptian brigades: the 3rd on the coastal axis from Gaza to Rafah and the 2nd at El Auja, today Nitzana, on the road south from Beersheba, with light tanks, armored cars and artillery.²

The Israeli Southern Front under Yigal Allon prepared to destroy these positions and push the Egyptians back over the international border. Allon had the Golani Brigade in the west and, for the main blow, the 8th Armored Brigade and the Palmach's Negev and Harel brigades, supported by artillery, mortars and engineers.³

A feint and a flood

The operation began on the night of 22 December with a deception in the west. The Israeli air force bombed the airfield at El Arish, the navy shelled the coast at Gaza, and Golani took an Egyptian post on the Gaza to Rafah road. The Egyptians counterattacked the next day, moving armor west, and Golani had to give the post up. The main attack was meant to follow within 24 hours, but rain flooded the wadis of the Negev and it was delayed by two days.⁴

Breaking the eastern line

On 24 December the 8th Brigade, with Harel, moved on Nitzana by a difficult route from the east. An attack on the 26th failed, but the position fell the next day. Meanwhile the Negev Brigade cut the road between Beersheba and Nitzana and took the Egyptian posts around Tamila. Egyptian units caught between the two wedges scattered toward the border, and by 27 December the road from Beersheba to Nitzana was open again.⁵

On the afternoon of 28 December the Negev Brigade and a battalion of the 8th Brigade crossed into Sinai. They took Umm Katef that night and Abu Ageila the next day, raided the airfields at Bir Hasana and Bir Lahfan and threatened El Arish.⁶

The diplomats step in

The advance alarmed London. On 29 December, according to a State Department telegram, the British told Washington that Egypt's war minister reported Israeli troops over the frontier and within ten miles of El Arish, and that if this was true Britain's obligations under the Anglo-Egyptian treaty would come into play. The next day the British ambassador, Sir Oliver Franks, delivered a formal note: Israeli columns were attacking across the frontier toward El Arish, an Egyptian airstrip had been taken, and Egyptian Spitfires were landing out of fuel at British bases in the Canal Zone. He hinted that Britain might resume arms shipments to the Arab states, which the acting Secretary of State, Robert Lovett, warned would break the UN arms embargo.⁷

Washington pressed Israel to withdraw, and it did. The American representative in Tel Aviv, James McDonald, reported on 5 January that Israeli forces had abruptly left Egyptian territory because of the US representations, and he warned that Israelis now saw the United States as directly involved in the war. The mission understood that the Israeli plan had been to raid El Arish and neutralize Rafah, leaving an escape route for an estimated 18,000 Egyptian troops.⁸

Rafah and the RAF

The Israelis then tried to take Rafah from the south, with Harel and part of the Negev Brigade on the road from Nitzana and Golani attacking from the north. Israel's foreign minister, Moshe Shertok, later told McDonald that all Israeli units had been out of Egypt by 2 January, but that some may have crossed again near Rafah before the cease-fire.⁹

On 7 January Israeli fighters shot down five British aircraft. The Palmach database says the planes were trying to signal the Israelis to stop fighting; the British account passed to Washington the next day said they were unarmed reconnaissance aircraft attacked without provocation over Egyptian territory, four from one flight and one from a second. The incident added to the American pressure to end the fighting, and by 9 January a cease-fire was in force.¹⁰

Operation Horev was one of the largest Israeli operations of the war. The Egyptian army had been driven out of the Negev, though it kept the Gaza Strip. Egypt now agreed to talk, and the fighting gave way to armistice negotiations on the island of Rhodes.¹¹