The canal had been shut to shipping since 1967, 195 kilometres of water with no traffic on it, and ships still trapped in the Great Bitter Lake. In 1973 Egyptian engineers cut the sand ramparts on the west bank with water pumped from the canal itself and had pontoon bridges across within hours — the photograph shows a column of trucks on one of them. The war that began with that crossing killed thousands on both sides over the weeks that followed.
The halt came from New York, in the end: Resolution 338, adopted by the Security Council on 22 October, called for a ceasefire within twelve hours and for negotiations to begin. It took a second resolution two days later before the guns were quiet, and the ships in the Great Bitter Lake stayed where they were for years afterwards.
The day carries two names because of the calendars it fell between: it was Yom Kippur, the fast when much of Israel was at prayer or at home, and it came inside Ramadan, when Egyptian soldiers were fasting through daylight. Egyptians also call it simply the October War. The same hours, kept differently on each side.