This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The main phase of the fighting took place between 16 and 27 September , though certain aspects of the conflict continued until 17 July After the Six-Day War , Palestinian fedayeen guerrillas relocated to Jordan and stepped up their attacks against Israel and what had become the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
They were headquartered at the Jordanian border town of Karameh , which Israel targeted during the Battle of Karameh in , leading to a surge of Arab support for the fedayeen. The PLO's strength grew, and by early , leftist groups within the PLO began calling for the overthrow of Jordan's Hashemite monarchy , leading to violent clashes in June Hussein hesitated to oust them from the country, but continued PLO activities in Jordan culminated in the Dawson's Field hijackings of 6 September This involved the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP seizing three civilian passenger flights and forcing their landing in the Jordanian city of Zarqa , where they took foreign nationals as hostages and blew up the planes in front of international press.
Hussein saw this as the last straw and ordered the Jordanian Army to take action. On 17 September , the Jordanian Army surrounded cities with a significant PLO presence, including Amman and Irbid , and began targeting fedayeen posts that were operating from Palestinian refugee camps.
The next day, 10, Syrian troops bearing Palestine Liberation Army PLA markings began an invasion by advancing towards Irbid, which the fedayeen had occupied and declared to be a "liberated" city. On 22 September, the Syrians withdrew from Irbid after suffering heavy losses to a coordinated aerialβground offensive by the Jordanians.
Mounting pressure from other Arab countries, such as Iraq , led Hussein to halt his offensive. On 13 October, he signed an agreement with Arafat to regulate the fedayeen's presence in Jordan. However, the Jordanian military attacked again in January , and the fedayeen were driven out of the cities, one by one, until 2, surrendered after they were encircled during the Ajlun offensive on 23 July, formally marking the end of the conflict.
