Yeshayahu Gavish, Six Day War general who captured the Sinai, dies at 99
Known as ‘Shaike,’ Palmach alum was last living senior commander from 1967 war, where he led massive Sinai battle; felt Paratroopers ‘stole the show’ with conquest of Jerusalem
Yeshayahu Gavish, the last living senior IDF commander from 1967’s Six Day War, died in his home in Ramat Hasharon Thursday, Hebrew media reported. He was 99.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Gavish, commonly known as “Shaike,” was survived by two children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
As head of the Southern Command during the Six Day War, Gavish led the Battle of Umm-Qatef, during which Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.
The battle was among the largest in Israeli history, and took place on June 5-6, the first two days of the 1967 war.
On the third day of the war, the IDF completed its conquest of Jerusalem from Jordan, culminating with Paratroopers Brigade chief Mota Gur’s declaration: “The Temple Mount is in our hands” — referring to the site of the ancient Jewish temples, in the Old City.
In his 2016 memoir, Gavish said tears rolled down his face at the emotional announcement, but that he also said: “They stole the show.”
The Egyptian front, he explained, was Israel’s most dangerous, and saw some of the largest-scale combat of the 20th century; “but in the nation’s memory, the strongest thing, which will remain forever, is the liberation of the Old City.”
Gavish retired from the army in 1970, after being passed over for chief of staff. In 1973’s Yom Kippur War, Gavish returned to Sinai as a reservist and commanded the Shlomo Command in the peninsula’s south.
He had also been instrumental in planning Israel’s short-lived occupation of Sinai in 1956, as the country sought to stem attacks from the peninsula and the Gaza Strip.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1925, Gavish joined the Palmach — the IDF’s pre-state predecessor — in 1943, at the age of 18.
He helped lead Ha’apala missions — operations to smuggle Jews into the country — defying the British Mandate’s restrictions on Jewish immigration. The restrictions consigned untold masses to death in Nazi camps during World War II.
After the war, Gavish planned to quit the Palmach and study engineering at the Technion in Haifa. Yitzhak Sadeh, the Palmach’s legendary commander, persuaded him to stay in the military, where he would remain for the next three decades.
According to Haaretz, as a Palmach officer, Gavish participated in acts of sabotage against the British Mandate, including the “Night of the Railroads” in 1945 and “Night of the Bridges” in 1946, when Jewish paramilitaries blew up vital Mandate infrastructure.
During Israel’s War of Independence, from 1947 to 1949, Gavish led forces in various parts of the newborn state. As a commander in the Yiftach Brigade, he took part in July 1948’s Operation Dani, which saw the weeks-old IDF drive Arab forces and civilians out of what is now central Israel.
Amid the operation, Israeli forces expelled tens of thousands of Palestinians from Lod and Ramleh. Haaretz said the memory of the refugees fleeing their homes weighed heavily on Gavish’s mind.
After the army, Gavish served as CEO of Koor Metals until his retirement.
Haaretz quoted Gavish reflecting on his former colleagues and commanders from the Six Day War: “Prime Minister Levi Eshkol is gone; Defense Minister Moshe Dayan is gone; IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin is gone.”
“I remain alone. It saddens me,” he said. “That generation is no more.”
