Operation Horev

Significance

Operation Horev was the final major Israeli offensive of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, directed against Egyptian forces in the Western Negev. Its strategic objective was to encircle and trap the Egyptian Army in the Gaza Strip. The operation ran from late December 1948 into early January 1949, placing sustained pressure on Egyptian positions at a late stage of the conflict. It was cut short not by battlefield reversal but by British diplomatic intervention: London threatened to intervene militarily unless Israeli troops withdrew from Egyptian territory. That external pressure forced an Israeli pullback and shaped the conditions under which armistice negotiations with Egypt would proceed, making the operation's political termination as consequential as its operational aims.