Israel at 50 Winternitzes in the shadow of war War with its neighbors remained a constant for the young but growing and modernizing nation.
Historians count five distinct Arab-Israeli wars.
The War of Independence in 1948 established the newborn state but with Jordan in control of Jerusalem's Old City. The Sinai Campaign of 1956 was waged against Egypt after it closed the Red Sea to Israeli ships, resulting in Israel temporarily occupying the Sinai and Gaza Strip. The Six-Day War of 1967 left Israel's army in control of Sinai, Judea and Samaria, Golan, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 ended in a cease-fire that returned much of the Sinai to Egypt and established a demilitarized buffer zone between Israel and Syria. The Lebanon War of 1982 left Israeli forces occupying the southern band of Lebanon.