1966 attack on Samu

1966 attack on Samu
Part of the Reprisal Operations
Date13 November 1966 (1966-11-13)
Location31°24′N 35°04′E / 31.400°N 35.067°E / 31.400; 35.067
Result Build-up to Six-Day War
Belligerents
 Israel  Jordan
Commanders and leaders
Strength
  • 400 troops
  • 40 half-tracks
  • 10 tanks
  • 4 fighter jets
  • 100 troops
  • 20 convoy vehicles
  • 8 fighter jets
Casualties and losses
  • 1 killed
  • 10 wounded
  • 1 fighter jet damaged
  • 16 killed
  • 54 wounded
  • 15 vehicles destroyed
  • 1 fighter jet destroyed
3 civilians killed, 96 wounded

The 1966 attack on Samu, codenamed by Israel as Operation Shredder, was a large cross-border assault on 13 November 1966 by the Israeli military on the Jordanian-controlled West Bank village of Samu. It was the largest Israeli military operation since the 1956 Suez Crisis and is considered to have been a contributing factor to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967.

Israel stated that the attack was in response to a Palestinian fedayeen guerrilla land mine attack two days earlier near the West Bank border, which killed three Israeli soldiers on a border patrol, purportedly from Jordanian territory. Prior to the cross-border attack, Jordan had been conducting an active campaign to curb insurgent activities from Palestinian fedayeen groups such as Fatah since 1965.

The handling of the incident was widely criticised in Israeli political and military circles, and the United Nations responded with United Nations Security Council Resolution 228, censuring Israel for "violating the United Nations Charter and the General Armistice Agreement."