Word: qantara
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...still strong in the minds of Israeli military planners. But the 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...
Crossing south of Great Bitter Lake, they met an Israeli patrol, and in a three-hour firefight near Suez, four Israelis and one Egyptian were wounded. In an other raid, south of El Qantara, the Egyptians unsuccessfully stormed an Israeli army post, losing three men (Egypt claimed 22 Israelis killed). In a third attack, Egyptian commandos tried to breach a road leading to the strategic Mitla Pass. The attacking Egyptian force was repulsed after killing one Israeli private...
...Egyptian people had not yet been told of the extent of the debacle. There were no announced casualty figures, no lists of wounded or missing, no mention of the fact that Israel held the east bank of the Suez. Egyptian officials evacuated part of the population of El Qantara, site of a bridge across the canal, to prevent townsfolk from seeing the stream of ragged, bandaged soldiers dragging homeward. But the troops returned with tales, and the marketplaces of Cairo buzzed with rumors. In the streets of Cairo, people spat on their own army officers...