Thirty-five years after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the military has declassified information from the Agranat Commission, a detailed probe into the war which includes testimony from dozens of officers. Two pages of the report remain classified after the release of the information.

Following the Egyptian attack on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered the commission to investigate, leading to the resignation of IDF Chief of Staff David Elazar, along with his chief of intelligence.

While Elazar was compelled to resign, the declassified report shows that then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan refused to give the green light for an Israeli preemptive strike despite calls from Elazar to fire the first bullet. Dayan told the commission the military intelligence reports he received mislead him into reaching the decision to refrain from launching an attack against Egypt.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)