Operation Focus & The 12 Hours That Changed the Middle East
Air Campaign 10
Author: Shlomo Aloni
Illustrator: Adam Tooby
Publication Date: 27 June 2019
Number of Pages: 96
The Israeli Air Force's Operation Focus was not only a watershed in the history of the modern Middle East, but was one of the greatest and most effective air-superiority campaigns ever waged. On a single morning, almost the entire IAF was committed to a surprise, preemptive airstrike against the air forces of the encircling Arab states. The attack was extraordinarily successful. Hundreds of Arab aircraft were destroyed, their airfields crippled, and the IAF gained almost complete air supremacy for the rest of the war.
This new illustrated study examines the planning, execution and aftermath of Operation Focus, showing how it not only effectively won the Six-Day War for Israel, but also impacted military thinking – in the Middle East and all over the globe – so profoundly that military leaders' perceptions of air superiority were practically transformed in its wake, signalling a turning point in the Cold War.
