Battle of Hermon

During the Yom Kippur War, several battles took place on The Hermon, a mountain in the Anti-Lebanon mountain range.

The Syrian attack

At the opening of the war, on the 6th of October 1973, the Syrian army conquered the mountain using a commando force, that were landed using four helicopters (one of them crashed while landing). Against the Syrian commandos there were only fourteen trained Israeli soldiers, and more 40 soldiers that were not combat-trained. Thirteen Israeli soldiers died in the battle.

The first attempt to capture the mountain

On October 8th, a force from the Golani Brigade that included 140-150 soldiers tried to conquer the mountain. The Syrians blocked the road that was leading up to the mountain with mines and fired on the Israeli forces from an overlooking position. Only 25 healthy Israeli troops managed to reach the range that dominates the Hermon whereas the Syrian forces were estimated at 400 troops. The absence of air and artillery support is blamed for the failure of the operation.

The capture of the mountain

On October 21st , the IDF launched Operation Dessert ("Kinuach" in Hebrew). A combined force of Paratroopers Brigade and Golani Brigade soldiers succeeded in taking back the mountain from the Syrian commando forces after a hard fight. 55 IDF soldiers died in the attack, and 80 more were wounded.