by this time Israeli artillery fire had made the main Cairo-Ismailia road unusable. Azmy lost contact with the 89th Battalion during the night, due to the intensity of Israeli bombardment on Touscan. At morning on October 21 the Israelis attacked again, and the paratroopers managed to repulse the attack again, before falling back. By dusk the battalion had abandoned the Touscan strong point and managed to retreat northward. Azmy had the 81st and 89th Battalions pulled back to the Ismailia Stadium, where they were to be reconstituted. The Israelis also attacked Heneidac at dawn that day using armor and infantry with air and artillery support, and captured the position before noon. The paratrooper company there pulled back north and joined the rest of the 85th Battalion at Jebel Mariam, now the only defensive position occupied by the 182nd Paratrooper Brigade, and the last position on the Suez Canal before Ismailia. Israeli command conflict During this time, Major Generals Shmuel Gonen and Chaim Bar-Lev, the heads of Israeli Southern Command and Sharon's superiors, continued to press Sharon to send forces to the east bank to widen the corridor to the Israeli bridgehead, while Sharon ignored these commands repeatedly, claiming that the attacks were unnecessary. Gonen finally issued a peremptory order to Sharon to transfer troops to the east bank and conduct a full-scale attack to widen the corridor. Sharon only sent five tanks as reinforcement to the armored brigade on the east bank tasked with launching the attack. Consequently, the Israelis suffered heavy losses and the assault was repulsed. Gonen and Bar-Lev were now joined by Lieutenant General David Elazar, and ordered Sharon to renew the attack, this time transferring Reshef's brigade. Sharon opposed this however, and argued that if he succeeded in his mission, the Egyptian Second Army would collapse, thereby eliminating any Egyptian threat to the Israeli corridor and bridgehead. He retorted with the claim that had it not been for Southern Command's hesitation, he could have encircled Ismailia by now. When his superiors remained adamant, Sharon bypassed the chain of command and contacted the Minister of Defense, Moshe Dayan, who called off any further attacks on the east bank. As a result, Sharon would be able to concentrate his attention and the efforts of his three brigades in the final push to capture Ismailia. Fifth day Egyptian preparations With Egyptian forces occupying a final line of defense, Khalil