Remembering the 6th

Today is the anniversary of the 6th of October 1973 war , today we remember all our fallen soldiers and officers as well our POWs whether in 1967 or in 1973.

Today we also remember the treatment of Israeli POWs in Egypt and how it is quite different to what our Egyptian POWs faced in 1956 and 1967.

In this occasion , I would like to share with you a rare Egyptian documentary directed by late famous director Shady Abdel Salam in 1975 about the war and the Egyptian soldiers. The documentary in Arabic includes the testimonies of Egyptian soldiers including those who had been captured by Israeli forces.

On the other hand this year we find some Israeli veteran returning back the military ID of Egyptian soldier which he took in 1973 during the war , it was a trophy of war I believe. There are not clear details about how he got it. According to Israeli press , the Israeli veteran felt sorry and believed it should return to the family of that late solider who was called “Abdel Hamid Abdel Hamid Ibrahim” after 39 years.

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Al Masry Al Youm Reopens the Egyptian POWs file in North Sinai

Last week Egypt celebrated the April 25th Sinai’s liberation day and Yesterday Al Masry Al Youm Daily published online a report about the Remains of Egyptian POWs scattered across North Sinai with testimonies from eye witnesses about the IDF’s  atrocities against the Egyptian officers and soldiers captured in 1967 war. 

The newspaper spoke with “Said Atika” , a local from North Sinai who is concerned with the POWs file and is angry on how the government is ignoring the lost rights of his POWs who told it that “There are hundreds of POWs remains across Sinai” and that the Bedouin elderly tell him from time to time on how they buried “under that tree couple of officers” or “near that hill they buried three soldiers” ..etc.

The remains of Egyptian POWs in North Sinai
The remains of Egyptian POWs in North Sinai "Al Masry Al Youm"

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Time to Remember our lost POWs rights

Yesterday was the anniversary of the six days war defeat. It was very special this year , the year of Arab spring revolutions. Despite we are busy in our present and planning for our future , we have not forgotten our past , we have not forgotten our POWs.

Now there is a good news that sooner insh Allah the file of the Egyptian POWs will be opened again , I am not going t reveal anything except that this revolution we have had will revive the case of Egyptian POWs again.

Wait for more updates insh Allah.

The POWs case is back

This is my first post in 2011 . It is my first post after the Jan25th Revolution in Egypt , it is my first post after ousting Hosni Mubarak , the same man who ignored for 30 years the rights of our Egyptian POWs.

I wanted to write here during the revolution to show to the whole world how the former ousted president had no friend in the world  except the same man who killed our POWs in 1967 : Binyamin Ben Eliezer !! During the climax of the revolution last February almost all the leaders of the world did not talk to Mubarak and he did not dare to call them except Ben Eliezer !!

Mubarak and Ben Elizar
Old buddies !!

It is enough that his last call before stepping down was to Ben Eliezer !! Some will not like what I will say but how come Mubarak was an officer in the Egyptian army and headed our air forces once upon time !! Ben Eliezer killed our unarmed Egyptian POWs in 1967 and he does not deny it for God sake yet they seemed to be close friends to the level that Mubarak spoke to Ben Eliezer for 20 minutes in his last international call as a president !!

Anyhow Ben Eliezer can feel very sad for Mubarak but he has to be worried now because the Egyptian POWs case seemed to be revived again by the Egyptian revolution.

The Egyptian Arabic socialist party has demanded PM Sharaf and the supreme council of armed forces to implement the administrative court rule to demand a UN and security council investigation concerning the Israeli war crimes against our POWs during the Suez war , the six days war and 1973 war.

FM Nabil El-Araby has announced that Egypt is going to join the ICC at last , this great news means we can sue Israel in front of the ICC.

Despite we are busy in our revolution that has not finished yet , we have forgotten the rights of our fallen soldiers , Ben Eliezer should be very worried.

New Book About Egyptian POWs

There is a new book that was published in Cairo from days ago about the Egyptian POWs , the name of the book “The crime of murdering the Egyptian POWs

The book’s author is researcher Abdel Razek Said Soliman and its introduction is written by Dr. Ibrahim El-Bahrawy who mentions in his introduction the “Fortunes of a fool” novel . The book which is an actually a study depends on the Israeli literature and how it showed incidents of war crimes against out Egyptian POWs.

The book also show examples of the Israeli literature that covered the 6th of October war.

The book is currently available in bookstore.

Via Youm 7

The Israeli POWs in 1973

This rare video shows you how the Israeli injured POWs were treated in Egyptian Captivity in 1973, this video shows you a group of Israeli POWs from IAF at Maadi military hospital.

Egypt’s first lady then Jihan Sadat refused to visit at first the Israeli injured POWs at Maadi hospital when she had visited the hospital , but the officials there convinced her to pay a visit the Israeli POWs because we treat our POWs in a better way.

Our Egyptian POWs were killed in cold blood in 1973 just like in 1967 and in 1956.

Via Sharm Life Blog

For Our POWs In 1973

Al Jazeera channel official website made a report about the Palestinian detainee , Mansour Mowqda who is currently jailed in Israel for murder an Israeli Veteran officer.

The story of Mansour started in early 2002 where he worked at a farmer that was owned by a veteran IDF officer , that officer one day bragged in front of Mansour on how he killed Egyptian POWs in Yom Kippur October war 1973, yes in Yom Kippur war.

Mansour told his family that the officer was speaking proudly on how the Egyptian soldiers were put under the tanks’ track to be squashed then later were buried in mass graves. He even told him that he killed the Egyptian officer who was in charge of  those soldiers with three gun shots then how he urinated over his body. Mansour could not keep his anger and killed that veteran officer/ war criminal.

Of course he was arrested later after being shot by dumdum bullets and was sentenced a life prison term. His injury went from bad to worse to worst as his lower part of his body is completely paralyzed.He had multiple major  surgeries and he needs huge medical care and attention.

The ministry of detainees affairs in the Palestinian authority’s lawyers failed in getting health parole for him yet managed to reduce his sentence from life sentence to 30 years !!

Still Mansour is being mistreated despite his illness and his disability in the prison and its hospital which are like a living hell. He does not receive the proper medical attention or care he should get. The Palestinian detainees who do not suffer from health problems already are suffering from the ill treatment in the Israeli prisons so you can imagine how people like Mansour suffer.

Mansour on his wheel chair

Mansour killed one person , a war criminal and he paid a very big price for it ; a price that I am afraid that war criminal did not pay when he killed our POWs in very cold blood.

Mansour should get a health parole , already I do not know what price he will pay more than what he is paying.

Now moving to the real war criminal here who was that veteran IDF officer , well I am not surprised at his claims in fact it is well known fact the IDF used to execute our Egyptian POWs using tanks’ tracks to save bullets and time !! That disgusting Nazi technique was used in 1967 widely across Sinai especially in Al Arish whose people remember that fearful scene of tanks moving over human beings and how that scene was directed by Ariel Sharon !!  They had done it in 1967 and so I would not be surprised that they used it in 1973.

I want to help Mansour but I feel that I am helpless , all what I can do is to write this post.

Source : Al Jazeera Net (Arabic)

A Humiliation of Human rights

Le guerre des six jours il ya 40 ans” or “40 years on the six days war” is an essay written by Chitour Chems in 2007 in the 40 anniversary of the war that changed the Middle East forever. The essay discusses the six days war and its implications up till now showing new historical revelations that the Israelis knew in advance that Nasser did not want to go unlike what they claimed and have been claiming up till now despite the confessions of the Israeli decision makers then.

Despite it is a heavy historical political essay still it contains very interesting details about the massacres against our POWs in 1967 which I will quote here the translation due to its importance.

Among the horrors that Israel was guilty, the film “Shaked Spirit” released by the Israeli state television was shock. It shows the massacres of Egyptian soldiers and officers, it opens  the war crimes file committed by Israel despite the liquidation of 250 solider could be considered  quite simple in comparison to those Egyptians and Palestinians, and even Israeli historians themselves’ testimonies that the number of prisoners were Killed in the capture was 10,000. Indeed, the number of prisoners would be killed in the capture of 10,000. In His book “The unit Shaked,” Professor Uri Milistein Gives details and counts of war crimes, Even Has A photo of Ben Eliezer with the caption: “Liquidation after the war.”  In his book “The unit Shaked,” Professor Uri Milistein counts and gives details of war crimes, even has a photo of Ben Eliezer with the caption: “Liquidation after the war.”

Among the testimonies of this book include: “I saw a man digging a hole for about 15 minutes. Then, Israeli soldiers Asked Him to throw the shovel. Then one of  them with an Uzi sub-machine gun killed him.” Israeli Historian Gabby Born, in Yediot Aharonot ” We were close enough to see the town mosque with the naked eye. On the morning of June 8, 1967, in Sinai, in the City of Arish, Israeli forces Have Systematically Executed more Than 1000 Egyptian POWs. The Israelis Asked prisoners to dig their own grave Before  Then finish them off. “ James Ennes, Former American serviceman from the USS Liberty, the American spy ship Was bombed in 1967. Fouad Riyadh former judge at the international criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia  called for the formation of an Investigation committee to investigate the Israeli crimes Against Egyptian soldiers: These crimes are quite identical to those Committed  in Bosnia.

These testimonies are not strange to us , in fact we mentioned some of them before in our website here , the question now is when these testimonies will be recognized , when these testimonies will be taken seriously whether locally or internationally

No News No Bad News

Dostor newspaper whether daily or weekly has not published anything new information or follow up the Egyptian POWs file they opened in last May 2010.

At first I thought it had to do with the instabilities happening in the last couple of months at North of Sinai so I asked Wael Mamdouh and he told me that there was nothing new to add which is true to be realistic , the update should come from the public opinion.

Amidst all the problems and crises Egypt is suffering from now , it seems that the POWs case is lost but not for too long because if anything I learned from this case is that it refuses to be forgotten.

The Crimes Against Egyptian POWs in Crimes of War Project

The Crimes of War project is a very promising respectable international project for documenting war crimes all over the world despite how this mission seems hard and difficult. The project issued a book about the war crimes in the world “Crimes of War 2.0” which is a guide to educate the people more about the war crimes using documented examples from around the globe and it is available in different languages among which an Arabic version from the book.

The project is an independent body that has no Arabic or Islamic relation what so ever , of course I have to say so just in case because there is an extensive section of course in this project and its book about the Arabic-Israeli conflict since 1948 war.

I found this part from the “Arab-Israeli Wars” Chapter related to the war crimes against our Egyptian POWs in 1956 and 1967 wars

In October–November 1956, the IDF overran the Gaza Strip, where it remained in control until March 1957. During the battle for this heavily populated zone and during the first weeks of occupation, the IDF killed some five hundred civilians, either in actual combat or in a subsequent series of massacres. Elsewhere during the Sinai-Suez War, IDF troops reportedly killed fleeing, and often unarmed, Egyptian troops by the hundreds and, occasionally, Egyptian prisoners of war. For example, at the end of October 1956, the IDF Paratroop Brigade killed some three dozen POWs near the Mitle Pass. Revelation of this affair in 1995 prompted Egyptian protests to Jerusalem and a demand for an investigation (whose results were never made public).

During the 1967 Six-Day and October 1973 wars, there were cases of IDF troops killing fleeing, and often unarmed, Arab troops and murdering POWs. Again, the victorious Israelis had greater opportunity to commit atrocities than their Arab foes, but there is evidence also that Arab troops, when given the chance, killed off surrendering Israelis and POWs. Such incidents occurred in the 1973 war’s first days, when the Syrians overran part of the Golan Heights and the Egyptians overran the IDF’s Bar-Lev Line along the east bank of the Suez Canal. Arab civilians and security forces also killed downed Israeli pilots on both fronts.

Again the researchers in the project are not Arabs nor antisemitic and you can see they are unbiased in the last part which I accuse the Arabs of murdering Israeli POWs , I do no know about the Syrian front but I will speak about the Egyptian side , the documents we have prove otherwise.

I can’t deny that the people in Delta killed the Israeli pilots who were downed but you must bear in mind the farmers in Delta were extremely angry because for years they have been targeted by the raids of the IAF through those 6 years.

You must know that up till now the Egyptian government is cooperating with the Israeli counterpart considering its missing pilots