Dayan: Israel Has Initiative on Both Fronts; War Will Not Last for Months

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan declared today that Israel has gained the initiative on both the Egyptian and Syrian fronts and predicted that the war will be a relatively short one. “I should say that I don’t expect this war to last for years or even months, and I do think that we have to think in terms of days, not just a few days,” he told pool reporters of the Foreign Press Association at a command post somewhere in Sinai.

Dayan said that the decisive battle in Sinai would begin soon, “not right now, not right away. He stated that Egypt had misjudged Israel’s ability to swing from defense to attack and had relied too much on their defensive installations with Russian equipment. Replying to questions, the Defense Minister said the tank battle now underway in Sinai was “going fairly well, and I think the main point is that we have gained the initiative on the Egyptian front that we have on the Syrian front.”

Gen. Haim V. Herzog, Israel’s leading military commentator, reported heavy Egyptian losses on the Suez front and estimated that 60 Egyptian tanks were destroyed today. Recalling Israel’s claim that more than 200 Egyptian tanks were knocked out Sunday, Gen. Herzog said that meant that at least a couple of Egyptian formations had been badly mauled. However, he said that Israel and Egypt were still locked “in the midst of a very big tank battle” and that large Egyptian forces have not yet been committed.

A military spokesman said that an Israeli tank task force that crossed the Suez Canal earlier in the week has been re-enforced through a wedge opened in Egyptian lines and was continuing to harass the Egyptians on the canal’s west bank. He said the tanks crossed the waterway on rafts in the Bitter Lake section and had little difficulty in advancing through the Egyptian 16th division on the west bank. He said the force was permanently linked to the east bank, presumably by a bridge and was commanded by a high-ranking officer.