Suez Crisis

1956-10-29 - 1956-11-07

The Suez Crisis, also known as the second Arab-Israeli war, was a British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October with the objective of reopening the Straits of Tiran, and the United Kingdom and France joined on 31 October, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had nationalized earlier that year. Heavy political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations prompted the invaders' withdrawal. The crisis demonstrated that Britain and France could no longer pursue independent foreign policy without U.S. consent, and it led to the establishment of a UN emergency force on the Egypt-Israel border.