Port Said > Bur Sa'id Bur Sa'id Egypt
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Work starts on the shore of the future Port Said.
The first sign of collusion between Israel and Britain and France comes on the same day, when the Anglo-French ultimatum is handed to Egypt and Israel before Israel has even reached the canal.
British bombing destroys the Egyptian air force, and British and French paratroopers are dropped over Port Said and Port Fuad.
The Egyptians put up fierce resistance. Ships are sunk in the canal to prevent transit.
In the battle for Port Said, about twenty-seven hundred Egyptian civilians and soldiers are killed or wounded.
There is almost universal condemnation of the Tripartite Invasion.
The Soviet Union threatens Britain and France with a rocket attack if they do not withdraw.
The United States, angered because it had not been informed by its allies of the invasion, realizes it cannot allow the Soviet Union to appear as the champion of the Third World against Western imperialism.
Thus, the United States puts pressure on the British and French to withdraw.
Faced with almost total opposition to the invasion, the anger of the United States, and the threat of the collapse of the pound sterling, the British agreed to withdraw. Severely condemned, Britain and France accept a cease-fire on November 6, as their troops are poised to advance the length of the canal.
The final evacuation takes place on December 22.
Britain and France, following their plan, demand that Israeli and Egyptian troops withdraw from the canal, and they announce that they will intervene to enforce a cease-fire ordered by the United Nations.
Having issued their ultimatum to Cairo, the Anglo-French proceed to bomb Egyptian bases.
The Egyptian army evacuates the Sinai.
Egypt frustrates the Anglo-French plan by the simple expedient of scuttling ships in the canal, but the Anglo-French go ahead with a landing at Port Said and Port Fuad.
The French and British take over the Suez Canal area on November 5, 1956, but growing opposition at home and in the UN and Soviet threats of intervention put an immediate stop to the Anglo-French action.
It is open to all ships except those of Israel, and it will remain open until the June 1967 War (Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War).
Diplomatic relations between Egypt and Britain will not be restored until 1969.
Rejectionist elements within the PLO renew their activities, attracting worldwide attention, as violent terror attacks begin to escalate in the mid-1980s.
On October 7, 1985, four heavily armed members of the Palestine Liberation Front, a small faction within the PLO that had split from the PFLP-GC in the mid-1970s and is headed by Abul Abbas, hijack an Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, carrying more than four hundred passengers.
The hijackers demand that Israel free fifty Palestinian prisoners.
The terrorists kill a disabled American tourist, sixty-nine-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, and throw his body overboard with his wheelchair.
Counter-terrorist units from the U.S respond, including elements of Delta Force and SEAL Team Six; however, the situation is resolved before an assault becomes necessary.