Word: ismailia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...linkage. Israel was prepared to pull back 20 miles from the Suez Canal to positions at Sinai's Mitla and Giddi passes. In return, Jerusalem expected Egypt to thin out its armor and artillery in Sinai, reopen the Suez Canal and, as a buffer, repopulate its ports of Ismailia, Suez and Port Said with civilians who fled the bitter cross-canal bombardments of the post-1967 war of attrition. Israel also insisted that Egypt issue a declaration forswearing further belligerency. For its part, Egypt wanted Israel to carry out a unilateral withdrawal beyond the passes and declare that this...
...Peace Boulevard." The mood was starkly different in Suez itself. The Israelis hold three quarters of the port city. The residential quarters remain in Egyptian hands, but the port, the oil refineries and the suburbs are occupied by Israeli troops. On all the main boulevards leading from Ismailia down into the port city, there was evidence of bitter fighting. Whole blocks of apartment buildings have been destroyed. Many of them still contained bodies. Part way down the main street, now nicknamed "Peace Boulevard," two burned-out Egyptian trucks blocked the road. On one side were Israeli troops, some of them...
...force with tanks, halftracks and artillery, first by barge and later across bridges hastily constructed north of the Great Bitter Lake. By week's end the force of 15,000 men was making headway in a three-pronged assault on the western bank of the canal: northward toward Ismailia, southward toward Port Suez and westward toward Cairo...
...Egyptians created a deadly zone of ground-to-air missiles and artillery to safeguard their bridgeheads. Up and down the canal, Egyptian forces in assault boats suddenly put out a series of bridges, including three at El Qantara in the north-central sector of the canal, three more at Ismailia and another three at Suez on the southern end. Some of the bridges were old-fashioned pontoons lashed together and topped with roadway; others were a modern type put down by Soviet-developed amphibious vehicles that laid ladder-like sections as they chugged across the canal. Soldiers went across...
...Sinai. By the second afternoon of the war, the reserve unit was in place at El Qantara, but it was unable to break through Egyptian lines to reach the bigger force it was assigned to support. Halevy later reported to TIME: "We were fighting in the area opposite Ismailia and the Firdan ridge. The Egyptian artillery was thick. Our tanks picked up casualties and took them along as we advanced because there was no immediate way the men could be evacuated." The Egyptians, he noted, "were fighting well, not running away. Our tactic the first two days was, as usual...