An IDF officer interrogates a prisoner from Gaza at the beginning of the Suez Crisis or Tripartite Aggression, c. 1956
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The Tripartite Aggression was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba. The United Kingdomand France joined the Israelis on 5 November, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had earlier nationalised.
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Shortly after the invasion began, the three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as from the United Nations, eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt. American president Dwight D. Eisenhower issued a strong warning to the British and threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the American government’s bonds of pound sterling. Historians have concluded that the Suez Crisis “signified the end of Great Britain’s role as one of the world’s major powers” to the United States and the Soviet Union.