Here, Herb Block depicted the complete surprise of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Uncle Sam at the Suez War of 1956. In July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been controlled by the British. On October 29, Israel successfully invaded both the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. England and France did not inform the United States when they secretly backed Israel against Egypt in the war and used their military power to attempt to force Egypt to surrender the canal, but Nasser retaliated by sinking forty ships in its waters.