Examine a specific encounter without losing sight of the conflict around it.
An individual battle can change a front without ending a war. An operation may pursue a limited objective, span several encounters or take place outside a declared war. This index brings those smaller units of history into view, explaining their purpose, course and consequences. It also includes attacks and incidents that need their own factual account; placement in this section does not mean every record describes a conventional battle.
Each record identifies the forces or organizations involved and links to its wider conflict where that relationship applies. Read the local outcome alongside the broader account to see what changed and what remained unresolved. Dates and locations are given only as precisely as the evidence allows. Accounts of attacks on civilians and other sensitive events use the same standards of sourcing and attribution as military engagements, without graphic detail or celebratory language.
BattleMarch 1, 1920
On March 1, 1920, a clash at the Tel Hai farmstead in the Upper Galilee killed six Jewish defenders, Joseph Trumpeldor among them, and five Arab attackers. The site was abandoned, but its story became a founding myth of Israeli memory.
BattleDecember 1947 to July 18, 1948
Siege, bombings, street fighting and Arab Legion shelling: for about eight months Jewish Jerusalem fought to survive. The new city held, the Jewish Quarter fell, and the truces left a city divided until 1967.
BattleDecember 1947 to May 14, 1948
Four isolated kibbutzim in the Hebron hills held out under siege for about five months. On May 13, 1948, Kfar Etzion fell and its defenders were massacred, and the next day the other three kibbutzim surrendered.
Military operationApril 5, 1948 to April 20, 1948
The Haganah's first large operation, in April 1948, set out to break the blockade of the road to Jerusalem. The battle for al-Qastal and the death of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni opened the road briefly, and large convoys reached the city.
BattleApril 21, 1948 to April 22, 1948
On April 21 and 22, 1948, right after British troops pulled back from their positions, the Haganah's Carmeli Brigade took the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa. Most of the city's Arab residents left, and the port city passed to Jewish control.
BattleMay 24, 1948 to July 18, 1948
Between May and July 1948 Israeli forces repeatedly attacked Latrun, where Jordan's Arab Legion commanded the road to besieged Jerusalem. Every assault failed, but a bypass track, the Burma Road, broke the siege of the city.
Military operationJuly 9, 1948 to July 18, 1948
The July 1948 Israeli offensive that captured Lydda, Ramle and the airport, removing the threat to Tel Aviv, but stalled against the Arab Legion at Latrun. Tens of thousands of Arab residents of the two towns were expelled.
Military operationOctober 15, 1948 to October 22, 1948
The October 1948 Israeli offensive that broke the Egyptian line in the northern Negev, took Huleiqat and Beersheba and trapped an Egyptian brigade in the Faluja pocket, joining the Negev settlements to the rest of Israel.
Military operationDecember 22, 1948 to January 7, 1949
The last offensive against Egypt in the 1947 to 1949 war: Israeli forces outflanked the Egyptian line through the desert, took Auja, crossed into Sinai, withdrew under British pressure and brought Egypt to armistice talks.
Military operationMarch 5, 1949 to March 10, 1949
The last operation of the 1947 to 1949 war: a desert march by the Negev and Golani brigades, almost without fighting, to Umm Rashrash on the Gulf of Aqaba, where the Ink Flag was raised on March 10, 1949.
Military operationJune 5, 1967
The Israeli Air Force's preemptive strike on Egypt's airfields on the morning of June 5, 1967, extended later that day to Jordan, Syria and Iraq. It gave Israel complete air superiority and shaped the war within hours.
BattleJune 5, 1967 to June 7, 1967
Three days of fighting, June 5 to 7, 1967, in which the IDF took East Jerusalem and the Old City from the Jordanian army, joined Mount Scopus to the city and reached the Western Wall after 19 years.
BattleJune 6, 1967
A four-hour night battle on June 6, 1967, for a fortified Jordanian post in north Jerusalem, one of the hardest of the Six-Day War. Thirty-six paratroopers and 71 Jordanian soldiers were killed.
BattleOctober 6, 1973 to October 9, 1973
In the first four days of the Yom Kippur War, Israel's 7th Armored Brigade held the northern Golan between Mount Hermonit and Booster ridge against a far larger Syrian armored force, preventing a breakthrough toward the Galilee.
Military operationOctober 15, 1973 to October 24, 1973
Israel's crossing of the Suez Canal at Deversoir, beginning on the night of October 15 to 16, 1973. After a hard fight for the roads, armored divisions crossed, destroyed air-defense sites and encircled Egypt's Third Army.
BattleOctober 15, 1973 to October 17, 1973
Three days of close fighting, from October 15 to 17, 1973, for the Tirtur and Akavish roads leading to Israel's canal crossing point. The battle opened the way for the bridges and was among the costliest of the war.
Military operationJune 27, 1976 to July 4, 1976
After Air France Flight 139 was hijacked to Uganda, Israeli commandos landed at Entebbe on the night of July 3 to 4, 1976, and freed 102 of the 106 hostages. Yonatan Netanyahu and three hostages were killed.
Military operationMarch 14, 1978 to June 13, 1978
After the Coastal Road massacre, about 25,000 Israeli troops entered southern Lebanon in March 1978 and reached the Litani River. The operation led to UNIFIL's creation, and in June Israel handed the border strip to Saad Haddad's militia.
Military operationJune 7, 1981
On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16s escorted by F-15s destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad. The Security Council condemned the strike, which became the founding case of the Begin doctrine.
Military operationMarch 29, 2002 to May 10, 2002
Israel's largest military operation in the West Bank since 1967: after the Passover bombing in Netanya, the IDF entered Ramallah, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Jenin and Nablus and besieged Arafat in his Mukataa compound.
Military operationDecember 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009
A 22-day operation in the Gaza Strip that opened with a wave of airstrikes on December 27, 2008 and included a ground invasion from January 3, 2009, aimed at stopping Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel.
Military operationNovember 14, 2012 to November 21, 2012
Eight days of fighting in November 2012 that began with the killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari. About 1,500 rockets were fired at Israel, Iron Dome faced its first broad test, and Egypt brokered a ceasefire without a ground invasion.
Military operationJuly 8, 2014 to August 26, 2014
A 50-day Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2014, combining an air campaign with a ground push against Hamas tunnels, and the longest and deadliest Israel-Hamas round before 2023.
Military operationMay 10, 2021 to May 21, 2021
An 11-day round between Israel and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in May 2021, opened by rocket fire at Jerusalem and accompanied by an unprecedented wave of violence in Israel's mixed Jewish and Arab cities.
AttackOctober 7, 2023 to October 10, 2023
The Hamas-led assault from Gaza on army posts and more than twenty communities in southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli official figures, 251 were taken hostage, and the attack opened the Gaza war.
