Battle of Karameh

Overview

The Battle of Karameh was a 15-hour military engagement between Israel and the combined forces of Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the Jordanian border town of Karameh during the War of Attrition on 21 March 1968. It was planned by Israel as one of two concurrent raids on PLO camps, one in Karameh along the Jordan River and the other in the distant village of Ghor es-Safi south of the Dead Sea.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

The Battle of Karameh was a 15-hour engagement between Israeli forces and the combined Jordanian and PLO forces at the border town of Karameh. Planned as one of two concurrent Israeli raids — the other targeting the village of Ghor es-Safi south of the Dead Sea — the operation brought Israeli forces numbering 15,000 against approximately 1,000 Jordanian defenders alongside PLO fighters. Israeli casualties of 161 and Jordanian casualties of 100–250 reflected the intensity of the fighting relative to the scale of the operation. Within the War of Attrition, Karameh stood as a significant test of PLO and Jordanian resolve against Israeli cross-border operations, and the willingness of both to contest a major Israeli incursion directly on Jordanian soil shaped the subsequent trajectory of Palestinian resistance and Jordanian-Israeli border tensions.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (16)