1956 SINAI WAR

1956 SINAI WAR

War in the Sinai 1956 Raids and reprisals between the Arabs and Israel, and Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal, led to Israel's invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. While French and British troops took control of the canal, the Israelis took Gaza and Sharm el Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula that controls access to the Gulf of Aqaba and the Indian Ocean. Israel withdrew in 1957 after its access to the gulf was guaranteed by the United Nations.

Al Fatah and the PLO 1959 Former Palestinian activist and Egyptian army soldier Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir) founded Al Fatah -- an acronym for the Palestine National Liberation Movement. It grew rapidly through the 1960s to become the biggest and richest Palestinian force. In 1969, Arafat became chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a group formed in 1964 as an umbrella for a number of Palestinian factions engaging in guerrilla warfare against Israel. The U.N. General Assembly voted to grant observer status to the PLO in November 1974.