A war in the Middle East that started during the Yom Kippur holiday in 1973 when combined forces from Egypt and Syria attacked Israel with the aim of regaining territory lost to Israel in 1967. They made initial gains, capturing part of the Sinai and occupying part of the Golan Heights, until the United States airlifted massive quantities of materiel to Tel Aviv. When the Soviet Union threatened to intervene militarily in the conflict, the United States brokered a ceasefire that brought military hostilities to an end. Some remaining issues were settled at the Camp David Accords a few years later.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.