June 5, 1967 · Egypt / Air War Theater

At 7:45 a.m. on June 5 — when Israeli intelligence knew Egyptian pilots would be eating breakfast — 183 Israeli aircraft fly low over the Mediterranean and destroy 300 Egyptian aircraft in less than three hours. Flying in tight waves, Israeli jets hit 11 Egyptian airfields simultaneously, destroying planes on the ground, cratering runways, and eliminating Egypt's entire air force before it can take off. A second wave destroys Jordan, Syria, and Iraq's air forces hours later.

June 5–6, 1967 · Sinai Peninsula Theater

Ariel Sharon's night assault on Abu-Ageila was one of the most sophisticated combined-arms operations in the history of armored warfare. The Egyptian 2nd Division had fortified Abu-Ageila with three lines of trenches, minefields, 90 tanks, and 66 artillery pieces — a prepared defensive position designed to stop an armored thrust. Sharon attacked on the night of June 5–6 from multiple directions simultaneously: tanks attacked the front, paratroopers were landed by helicopter behind Egyptian artillery to silence it, infantry attacked the trenches, and engineering units bridged minefields. The entire Egyptian garrison was destroyed or captured in a single night.

June 5–6, 1967 · Sinai Peninsula / Northern Axis Theater

General Israel Tal's armored division drove along the northern coastal axis through Khan Yunis and assaulted El Arish — the administrative capital of Sinai and a key Egyptian defensive hub. Tal's force broke through the Egyptian 7th Division's defensive positions in intense fighting, outflanking strongpoints and bypassing resistance rather than reducing every position. Israeli armor moved at night, which Egyptian commanders had not expected, and reached El Arish by dawn. The city fell on June 5–6 as Egyptian units dissolved under the dual pressure of Israeli armor from the front and Israeli aircraft overhead.

June 5–6, 1967 · Sinai Peninsula / Gaza Strip Theater

The Rafah Junction was a critical Egyptian defensive node controlling the roads connecting Gaza to the Sinai interior. Yoffe's division, operating between Tal's northern axis and Sharon's central axis, attacked through the sand dunes that Egyptian commanders had considered impassable — routing his armor through terrain the enemy had not prepared to defend. Israeli tanks breached the perimeter of Rafah at night in a fighting advance that shocked Egyptian defenders who had not anticipated armor in the dunes. The junction fell by morning, isolating the Gaza Strip from the Sinai.

June 5–8, 1967 · Sinai Peninsula Theater

Three Israeli armored divisions — Tal, Sharon, and Yoffe — crash into Egyptian defenses simultaneously along different axes. Sharon's division fights the battle of Abu-Ageila in a brilliant coordinated night attack. Without air cover, Egyptian armor is devastated. Amer panics and orders a general retreat that turns into a rout — soldiers abandon vehicles and flee on foot across the desert. The entire Sinai falls in four days.

June 5–7, 1967 · West Bank / Jerusalem Theater

Israel had urged Jordan's King Hussein to stay out of the war, but Egyptian disinformation led him to believe Egypt was winning. Jordan opened fire on West Jerusalem, and Israel responded with a three-pronged assault on East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Paratroopers of the 55th Brigade fought street by street through the Old City. On June 7, Col. Mordechai Gur radioed the words: 'The Temple Mount is in our hands.'

June 5–6, 1967 · West Bank / Northern Sector Theater

Jenin was the key town in the northern West Bank and a Jordanian defensive strongpoint controlling the approaches to Nablus and Tulkarm. Israeli forces attacked from multiple directions as Jordanian artillery had opened fire on Israeli settlements in the Jezreel Valley. Israeli infantry and armor fought through Jenin's built-up outskirts against Jordanian Arab Legion defenders — battle-hardened veterans of a British-trained professional army — in close combat. Jenin fell on June 6, and Israeli columns pushed south through the northern West Bank.

June 6–7, 1967 · West Bank / Central Sector Theater

Latrun held deep symbolic weight for Israel — it was the site of the IDF's worst defeat in the 1948 war, where inexperienced Israeli troops had been massacred in frontal assaults on a Jordanian-held police fortress that commanded the main road to Jerusalem. In 1967, Israeli forces encircled Latrun without a direct assault, cutting it off as columns drove deeper into the West Bank. The garrison was isolated and the area secured as part of the broader West Bank sweep. Unlike 1948, in 1967 the Israeli approach was to bypass and encircle rather than assault frontally.

June 7–8, 1967 · Southern Sinai / Red Sea Theater

Sharm el-Sheikh — the Egyptian position at the southern tip of the Sinai controlling the Straits of Tiran — was the geographic casus belli of the war. Nasser's closure of the straits to Israeli shipping on May 22 had triggered the crisis. Israeli forces reached Sharm el-Sheikh by a combination of land advance down the Sinai's western coast and a naval landing. The Egyptian garrison had largely withdrawn or surrendered by the time Israeli forces arrived. A small Israeli flotilla entered the straits to demonstrate freedom of navigation.

June 9–10, 1967 · Golan Heights Theater

With Egypt and Jordan defeated, Israel turned north on the final day and stormed the Golan Heights — the volcanic plateau overlooking the Sea of Galilee from which Syria had been shelling Israeli farms for years. The assault against fortified Syrian positions on steep basalt cliffs was Israel's most difficult and costly operation. Syrian forces collapsed after fierce fighting and the Heights fell in 36 hours.