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7th Brigade (Armored)

The 7th Brigade (Armored) (Hativa Sheva in Hebrew, aka. 7th Armored Brigade) was a fairly tyical armored brigade of the immediate post-World War II period. It consisted of a battalion of Sherman medium tanks, a battalion of AMX-13 light tanks, a battalion of half-track mounted infantry, a reconnaissance company, and an artillery battery.

Initially in the 1956 war Israel's only armored brigade, the 7th, remained in reserve, with no mission except to use its tank guns as additional indirect-fire weapons. The brigade commander, Col. Uri Ben-Ari, was dissatisfied with his symbolic role, and almost derailed the entire Israeli plan by crossing the border too early. His reconnaissance company penetrated the poorly guarded Dyka Pass on the southern flank of the key Egyptian position of Abu Agheila-Um Katef. Although this reconnaissance indicated that the road through the pass would support only a few vehicles, Ben-Ari took a calculated risk and committed his three cross-attached task forces on three different axes to fracture the Egyptian defense. Task Force A attacked in vain against the southern side of the Um Katef defenses, where two other Israeli brigades were already making expensive frontal assaults. Task Force C exploited to the southwest, towards the Suez Canal. Ben Ari sent Task Force B, consisting of one company of Sherman tanks and one company of mechanized infantry, through the Dyka Pass and into the middle of the Egyptian position. The task force commander, Lt. Col. Avraham, Adan, held this position against limited Egyptian attacks from two directions and strafing by his own aircraft. Only the 7th Brigade's artillery battery gave Adan effective support.

This small task force greatly discouraged and confused the Egyptian defenders in the area, who felt that their line of communications had been out. The frontal infantry attacks were therefore able to overrun the Egyptians.

The 7th Armored Brigade did not win the 1956 war by itself, yet its actions at Abu Agheila and elsewhere convinced Dayan that armored forces were a superior instrument for future wars of maneuver. During the decade after 1956, the Israeli Defense Forces gave the armored corps almost as high a priority for men and material, as the air force and paratroopers received. As deputy commander of the Armor Corps from 1956 to 1961, and commander after 1964, Israel Tal shaped Israeli armor into an effective force.