5. Operation Focus
Operation Focus also called Operation Mocked, was a surprise strike on Arab military airfields carried out by Israeli Air Force. The attack which was launched at 07:45 on June 5, 1967, destroyed over 450 aircraft on the ground in only a span of three hours. Operation Focus is of great importance in the study of air strategy and sets a very high standard for subsequent air war operations in Israel.
In mid-1967, Egypt together with other Arab nations (Syria, Iraq, and Jordan) issued hair-rising threats to wipe out Israel. This followed Egypt’s president Gamal Abdul Nasser’s decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. This caused tension between the two countries and both were on a high military alert. With the help of other Arab countries, Egypt war (known as the six-day war) against Israel. Considering her chances, Israel realized that standing against several countries was a terrible mistake and decided to turn the impending conflict in their favor by conducting a preemptive airstrike against their enemies’ combined air forces.
To be successful, Israel used a new weapon, a rocket-assisted anti-runway warhead to initially destroy the runways. With about 20 French Mystere IVa jet aircraft which they had acquired from France in January of 1956 as well as some Ouragan, the Israelis disabled the runways and had all the time to attack Egyptian airfields, destroying dozens of planes, most of them to the ground.