Republic of Egypt (1953–1958) in the context of Republic of Sudan (1956–1969)

The United Arab Republic (UAR; Arabic: الجمهورية العربية المتحدة, romanized: al-Jumhūriyya al-ʿArabiyya al-Muttaḥida) was a sovereign state in the Middle East from 1958 to 1971. It was initially a short-lived political union between Egypt (including Egyptian-governed Gaza) and Syria from 1958 until Syria seceded from the union following the 1961 Syrian coup d'état. Egypt continued to be known officially as the United Arab Republic until it was formally dissolved by Anwar Sadat in September 1971.

The republic was led by Gamal Abdel Nasser as the Egyptian president. The UAR was a member of the United Arab States, a loose confederation with the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, which was dissolved in 1961. It was a brief pan-Arab union.

Major General Mohamed Bey Naguib Youssef Qutb El-Qashlan (Arabic: محمد بي نجيب يوسف قطب القشلان; 19 February 1901 – 28 August 1984), known simply as Mohamed Naguib (Arabic: محمد نجيب), was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who, along with Gamal Abdel Nasser, was one of the two principal leaders of the Free Officers movement of 1952 that toppled the monarchy of Egypt and the Sudan, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Egypt.

A distinguished and decorated general who was wounded in action in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, he became the leader of the Free Officers Movement of nationalist army officers opposed to the continued presence of British troops in Egypt and Sudan, and the corruption and incompetence of King Farouk. Following the toppling of Farouk in July 1952, Naguib went on to serve as the head of the Revolutionary Command Council, the prime minister of Egypt, and later its first president, successfully negotiating the independence of Sudan (hitherto a condominium of Egypt and the United Kingdom), and the withdrawal of all British military personnel from Egypt. His tenure as president came to end in November 1954 due to disagreements with other members of the Free Officers, particularly Nasser, who forced him to resign and succeeded him as president.

The occupation of the Gaza Strip by the United Arab Republic began in 1959 following the dissolution of the All-Palestine Protectorate, which had ruled the Gaza Strip as a client state of Egypt since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and its merger with the United Arab Republic.

The 1949 Armistice Agreements, which ended the Arab–Israeli War by delineating the Green Line as the armistice line between Israel and its four neighboring countries (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt), left the Kingdom of Egypt in control of a small swath of territory that was part of Mandatory Palestine prior to the war. That swath of territory became known as the Gaza Strip. In 1949 Egypt created the client state named the All-Palestine Government which lasted until 1959, the year after the Republic of Egypt and the Second Syrian Republic merged to form a single sovereign state known as the United Arab Republic. The Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip was interrupted for 4 months in late 1956 and early 1957 when Israel briefly occupied the strip as part of the 1956 Suez Crisis. The Egyptian occupation ended entirely during the 1967 Six-Day War, after which the territory became occupied by Israel with the establishment of the Israeli Military Governorate.

The United Arab States (UAS, Arabic: اتحاد الدول العربية) was a short-lived confederation between the United Arab Republic and the Kingdom of Yemen from 1958 to 1961.

The United Arab Republic was a sovereign state formed by the union of Egypt and Syria in 1958. The same year, the Kingdom of Yemen, which had already signed a defense pact with Egypt, entered a loose confederation with the UAR called the United Arab States on March 8. One reason for this decision was because North Yemen had felt threatened by its considerably larger and more powerful northern neighbor Saudi Arabia and saw the confederation as a source of security. However, unlike the constituent countries of the United Arab Republic, North Yemen remained an independent sovereign state, maintaining its UN membership and separate embassies throughout the whole period of confederation.

On 26 October 1954, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser narrowly survived an assassination attempt while giving a public speech in Manshiyya, Alexandria. Mahmoud Abdel-Latif, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, fired eight shots at Nasser, all of which missed, although two dignitaries were slightly injured by shattered glass. The failed attempt escalated tensions between Nasser's secular Arab nationalist regime and the Brotherhood, culminating in a nationwide crackdown on all political opponents. The event also consolidated Nasser's power, allowing him to overthrow Mohamed Naguib and formally assume the presidency. The incident has been referred to as the Manshiyya incident.

The Revolutionary Command Council (RCC; Arabic: مجلس قيادة الثورة Majlis Qiyāda ath-Thawra) was the body established to supervise the Republic of Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan after the Revolution of 1952. It initially selected Ali Maher Pasha as Prime Minister, but forced him to resign after conflict over land reform. At that time, the Council took full control of Egypt. The RCC controlled the state until 1954, when the Council dissolved itself.