Defense Ministry Opens Sinai War Archive With More Than 4,500 Photos

The Defense Ministry’s IDF and Defense Establishment Archive is opening a dedicated online collection on November 8 to mark 70 years since the Sinai Campaign, known in Israel as Operation Kadesh. The collection brings together original documents, maps and more than 4,500 photographs, alongside information about 149 commanders who began their military service during the War of Independence. The records include a conversation between David Ben-Gurion, then prime minister and defense minister, and senior IDF officers in the months after the campaign. Ben-Gurion distinguished the military reasons for capturing Gaza from a decision to retain or annex it. He discussed the threat from Egyptian forces, fedayeen attacks and the pressures facing border communities, including Nahal Oz and Nirim. Ben-Gurion also warned that keeping Gaza could deepen Israel’s international isolation and obstruct arms purchases before another war. Discussing the danger to the civilian rear in a future conflict, he said: “Tel Aviv will be bombed, Haifa will be bombed.” A separate protocol records remarks by Shimon Peres, then the Defense Ministry’s director general, about the difficulty of acquiring weapons during the War of Independence. He described purchases from Czechoslovakia and clandestine arms procurement elsewhere in Europe. Operation Kadesh began on October 29, 1956. Israel captured Gaza and much of Sinai while Britain and France acted against the Suez Canal. International pressure, including from the United States, was followed by Israel’s withdrawal within months. The archive’s anniversary publication gathers records of the campaign and the security and diplomatic considerations discussed by Israel’s leaders afterward.