The Tanks Of Tammuz

HE TANKS OF TAMMUZ is a dramatic eye-witness account of the lightning victory won by Israel’s Armoured Corps during the Six Days’ War.

In June ’67 tanks were the leading Israeli land force on every front. They smashed through the Egyptian defences at Sinai.

They swept the length and breadth of the peninsula to the banks of the Nile. They pulverised the Syrian fortress on the Golan Heights to win the battle for the west bank of the Jordan.

During the Six Days War, the armoured units broke through the Sinai defences and smashed through the Syrian fortress. They also ultimately brought the battle to a quick conclusion.

General Tal’s division, during the Six Days War, managed to breakthrough heavily fortified and defended areas in record breaking time.

Being attached to General Tal’s division, and as a war correspondent who witnessed these events, Shabtai Teveth describes the dust, heat and peril of every engagement-from earliest border incidents to one of the biggest tank battles of all time on the scorching sands of the Sinai desert, when Egypt threw close to a thousand tanks against Israel’s solitary three divisions.

Shabtai Teveth, born in 1925, was an Israeli historian and author. In 1950, he began working as a journalist and then became a polititical correspondent. In 2005, he won the Israel Prize for “lifetime achievement and special contribution to society and the State.” His other works include The Cursed Blessing: the story of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Moshe Dayan: the soldier, the man, the legend, and Kin’at David (David’s Jealousy), amongst many others.