1967: Sword of Israel
The Palestine Liberation Army
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2025

In January 1964, the Arab League held a summit in Cairo, and among other actions called for the establishment of what would become the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO would have control of its own armed forces, the Palestine Liberation Army, which would come under the Egyptian-led Unified Arab Command (UAC). The three front-line states, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, would all host PLA units, but in practice this put the project under Egyptian leadership.

Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser had multiple objectives with this project. It would, hopefully, bring a reconciliation with Saudi Arabia, which supported royalist forces in the ongoing war in Yemen, in opposition to the Egyptian-backed republicans. And it would bring the Palestinian irregulars under formal control, hopefully stopping their cross-border raids. Nasser blamed the Palestinians for provoking the 1956 Israeli invasion of Sinai, and wished to keep the fragile cease-fire that had ended the war intact, at least until he was ready to break it himself.

The Palestinian leadership had much greater goals for their new army, to be headed by the newly-minted Lt. Gen. Wajih al-Madani, the former chief bodyguard of the Emir of Kuwait. The new PLO’s charter expressly called for the complete destruction of Israel, and though it did not (unlike the Hamas Covenant crafted 42 years later) directly call for genocide, the implication was clear. Universal conscription of every military age Palestinian, including women, would form up to forty brigades including armor and artillery. These forces, Syrian President Amin al-Hafiz proclaimed, would overrun Israel in four days or less.

None of that fit with Nasser’s goals. Egyptian chief of staff Mohammed Fawiz, also serving the same role with the UAC, slow-walked the creation of Palestinian units. By the summer of 1966, the Palestinians had conscripted about 7,000 men, who formed three small commando battalions, which also provided a palace guard for the PLO and performed at military parades in their snappy dark-green uniforms and red berets. At that point the intake seems to have halted; a year later the PLA still listed a strength of 7,000 men.

Among the Arab states, only Jordan offered citizenship to Palestinians, both residents of the West Bank and refugees from areas that became part of Israel. The Gaza Strip had been incorporated into Egypt in 1961, but Palestinians under Egyptian rule, whether people resident in Gaza before 1948 or refugees from elsewhere, were not eligible for Egyptian citizenship and were rarely allowed to leave the Gaza Strip. Egypt could therefore not legally conscript them directly, nor did Nasser’s government desire to take in large numbers of Palestinians who might decide to follow the orders of their own leaders rather than Nasser. The Palestinians had no role in governing Gaza; that fell under an Egyptian governor-general, who was a military rather than a civilian appointment. The PLO had only the authority allowed by the governor-general, who tasked them with overseeing conscription.

Members of an Ayn Jalut commando battalion in training. May 1967.

Most of the Palestinian conscripts went to the 19th Infantry Brigade, a unit of the Egyptian National Guard fully officered by the Egyptian National Army. As the PLO lacked civil authority, so did the PLA lack military authority. The PLA had no command control of the brigade, but did have the obligation to provide payroll for the entire roster (including the brigade’s Egyptian cadre), uniforms, weapons, and food.

Fawiz declined Palestinian requests to call up and train more men, citing the lack of facilities. When the PLO pointed out that the Egyptians had ample barrack space, Fawiz demurred that those belonged to units deployed in Yemen and had to be kept for their use. But the Palestinians were welcome to pay the Egyptians to build new barracks for the trainees. Fawiz then helpfully accepted PLO cash, but repeatedly delayed putting out the construction projects for bids.

Slowly, Palestinian officers began to join the brigade and the commando battalions, as young men graduated from Egyptian training courses. The Egyptians also allowed the PLO to transfer a dozen Palestinian officers from the Syrian Arab Army, but when a brawl broke out with the Gazan officers trained in Egypt, Fawzi took that as an excuse to ship them back to Syria.

But Fawzi still controlled promotions and assignments, and by the time of the June 1967 Six-Day War, no Palestinian had advanced beyond the rank of captain, and all units of battalion size and larger were commanded by Egyptian National Army officers.

In a November 1964 meeting, the PLA sought heavier weapons: modern tanks and artillery to equip two battalions of each. The UAC agreed in April 1965 to a shopping list including 44 T-34/85 medium tanks, two dozen 122mm howitzers and a dozen 85mm anti-tank guns along with AK-47 assault rifles. The Palestinians insisted on the modern T-54 tank and 130mm long-range artillery piece, but Fawzi had no intention of giving them a weapon that could strike Tel Aviv from Gaza. The Egyptian chief of staff again slow-walked the request long enough to require a new conference in March 1966. Madani insisted that the Egyptians had agreed to supply the T-54, brandishing a copy of the April 1965 agreement in which the typewritten “T-34” had been crossed out by hand and replaced with a hand-written “T-54.” Fawzi was not moved.

Meanwhile, the Chinese had sent a shipment of donated modern light arms to the PLA in October 1965. The Egyptians could not fully block these, but did delay handing them over and charged the Palestinians import duties on them. Under the March 1966 agreement, the PLA would pay the Egyptians for the other arms purchases, and dutifully handed over their cash. The Egyptians appear to have purchased the arms, but diverted the modern weapons bought with Palestinian money to their own arsenals and supplied the 19th Brigade from the Egyptian National Army’s scrap heap.

An Egyptian Sherman tank, before it deteriorated enough to be given to the PLA.

The Palestinian soldiery therefore received worn British-made Enfield bolt-action rifles and Vickers machine guns, British-made 25-pounder artillery pieces, and a handful of M4 Sherman tanks apparently used for training by the Egyptians before going to the boneyard. To prevent accidental firing during exercises, at some point holes had been drilled in the Shermans’ 75mm guns. The Palestinian crews sawed off the gun barrels below the holes, resulting in a weapon that would actually fire, but with very little range, accuracy or penetration power.

About 20 of these were present at Rafah in Gaza during the Six-Day War; none appear to have survived. Another 20 or so Egyptian-manned FL10 modified Shermans (with the turret of the French-made AMX-13 light tank, housing a high-velocity CN-75 75mm cannon) rounded out the 20th Infantry Division’s tank battalion. These forty tanks served in four mixed companies.

By the spring of 1967, the 19th Infantry Brigade remained under-strength. The initial plan had been to form three National Guard brigades from Palestinian manpower, which would make up the 20th Infantry Division. Instead, the division included two Egyptian brigades alongside the Palestinian unit. In February 1967 Fawzi approved filling out the 19th Infantry Brigade and raising three battalions of militia from men with previous military training and five more from volunteers.

The Egyptians also approved the formation of a brigade headquarters, the Ayn Jalut Brigade, to oversee the commando battalions. Fawzi appointed an Egyptian commander for the brigade, and though nominally subordinate to the PLA, Madani could only make “requests” passed through Egyptian channels and not communicate directly with his own troops. Madani wrote to Nasser to protest, and when that was ignored, staged a walkout, which was also ignored. Fawiz simply appointed a temporary replacement, Fathi Sa’d al-Din, without bothering to even consult with the PLO.

Some of Fawzi’s seeming obstruction was likely instead the result of simple Egyptian inefficiency. But the chief of staff was also very clearly carrying out Nasser’s will: the Palestine Liberation Army could exist as a symbol of Egypt’s leadership of the Arab world, but it could not under any circumstances be allowed to ignite a new war with Israel. That would come soon enough, but on Egypt’s timetable. Except that Israel struck first.

Egyptian sources place the 20th Infantry Division, including the 19th Infantry Brigade, outside of Gaza proper in Sinai. Egyptian policy had been to avoid provocation by keeping heavy weapons and major combat units out of the Gaza Strip. The Israelis claim to have fought them inside Gaza; given that the PLA commando and militia battalions lacked the heavy weapons that the Israelis encountered, it appears that the Egyptian division moved up at some point just before the fighting began. They did not last long in combat against the Israelis, though they put up stubborn resistance at several points. That’s more than can be said for the Ayn Jalut commandos and Popular Resistance militia, who simply melted away.

The loss of both Gaza and Sinai spelt the end of Egyptian sponsorship of Palestinian military units, and in any event, the military disaster soured the Palestinian leadership on the idea of a conventional role for the PLA in the struggle against Israel. The re-formed fedayeen units in Jordan would turn to infiltration attacks and terrorism. After their ejection from Jordan, the PLA would form conventional units in Lebanon which had little success against the Israelis in 1982.

The constant financial squeezing of the Palestinians wasn’t part of Nasser’s formal strategy, but is well in keeping with the general Egyptian disdain for Palestinians. Nasser’s policy proved successful. The Palestinians, their military energies diverted for the moment, did not ignite a war for which his military was not ready. His own scheming, and laughable Egyptian operational security, managed to do that without Palestinian help. But that’s another story.

Game Notes
The Egyptian National Army’s 20th “Palestinian” Infantry Division appears in two scenarios in Panzer Grenadier (Modern) 1967: Sword of Israel. In both cases, the fighting’s undertaken by the division’s Egyptian brigades. We’ll have a separate look at those Egyptian Shermans.

The first edition of 1967: Sword of Israel gave the Palestinians their own color scheme, but that’s not accurate and we corrected it in second (boxed) and Playbook editions. The troops of the 20th “Palestinian” Infantry Division who fought at Khan Yunis and Gaza City were the division’s Egyptian brigades, armed like other Egyptian units. The 19th Infantry Brigade was an Egyptian National Army outfit, even though it drew its manpower (and paychecks) through the PLA.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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