Category: Human rights

A Humiliation of Human rights

Zeinobia 1 Comment

“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

The Crimes Against Egyptian POWs in Crimes of War Project

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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

Remember Remember The 5th of June

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Today was the start of the six days war from 43 years ago , today was the start of a series of war crimes against civilians and POWs alike , it is not our issue here who won the battle or who lost but rather who respected the international laws and who did not.

Many Pro-Egyptian regime writers claims that the rights of the Egyptian POWs have been restored in 1973 Yom Kippor war but they are wrong because the rights of Egyptian and Arab POWs are not restored by wars and battles but with the law , the international laws.

Many Egyptians from Alexandria to Aswan remember today their beloved ones whether fathers, brothers and sons who went to a battle they did not know anything about , they remember them and wish one day to see those who killed their beloved ones in captivity behind bars as war criminals.

Our POWs Killer Visits Qatar

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Infamous Benyamin Ben Eliazer is visiting Qatar to head the Israeli delegation for the World Economic forum held in Doha there. He is the first Israeli minister to visit Doha Officially since the War on Gaza last year. Ben Eliazer is among the main Israeli officers demanded to be prosecuted for war crimes against the Egyptian POWs in the Six days war.

He was mentioned by name in specific in the testimony of former POW Amin Ramadan and his own Israeli officers and solider in the notorious Shaked battalion.

Now despite knowing the ministerial position of Ben Eliazer , yet I do not understand why or how Qatar officially receives him with all his bloody history !! This man should be arrested for war crimes but anyhow Qatar received before Omar El-Bashir if I am not mistaken !!

POW Mohamed Hosni Mubarak

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Many Egyptians know that President Hosni Mubarak had a cameo in an old black and white Egyptian film in 1950s  but most Egyptians ignore the fact that President Mubarak was captured as a POW in a war. Contrary to what you may think he was not captured as a POW in our wars 1956 and 1967 , President Mubarak was captured in the Sand war between Morocco and Algeria in  1963.

During that war Egypt was supporting Algeria against Morocco politically and militarily , it is not clear up till now the participation of Mubarak and whether he was transferring weapons or he was leading a squad of Egyptian and Algerian pilots , probably the later story is the correct one as it is supported by the Moroccans themselves.  Lieutenant Hosni Mubarak and his group were captured in Moroccan Aïn Chouatèr area .

As soon as notorious general Mohamed Oufkir knew about the capture of Egyptian and Algerian pilots , he ordered their immediate transfer to Marrakech for interrogation otherwise he would cut off the head of his officers !! God only knows what those young men had seen on the hand of that man. In the same year King Hassan exchanged our POWs in president Nasser’s presence at the African summit in Bamako.

This story found its way again after long time of neglect in 2009 when Moroccan newspaper Al Alam published an interview with the man who captured a man who became the president of the powerful Arab country in the world. In 2009 Moroccan Pilot Saleh Hashad spoke about the incident breifly on Al Jazeera channel.

There is no clear reason why this has not been mentioned in our official media or in Mubarak’s official biography despite the facts the Moroccans do not hide it and we have good relations with them and President Sadat who preceded President Mubarak was in jail in twice for two grave charges and he did not hide at all. Some people claimed that this incident did not find its way to the Egyptian public because the regime loves to hide the Nasserite regime mistakes which is untrue because during the Sadat’s era we knew much more grave mistakes and sins the Nasser regime had committed against the Egyptian and Arabic public.

The capture period is very hard for any solider and God only knows what Mubarak and his follow Egyptian pilots had seen on the hands of General Oufkir till their return back to Cairo so it is natural that that experience had left its remarks on Mubarak and re-shaped even on a little scale part of his personality. President Mubarak as a human knows very well what it means to become a POW and and how it feels to fear on your life and your constant wonder on whether you will return home or not ; this is why it is shocking to know how the Mubarak regime is treating our 1956 and 1967 POWs file.

False Promises

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In 1995 after the shameful confessions of IDF commanders of committing war crimes against our POWs in 1956 Suez War and what followed it affecting our mutual relations then , French Libération continued to cover the matter internationally revealing things we did not know about then back in Egypt for some reason. In August 1995 the French newspaper published a small newspaper based on an interview with an Israeli official , Elie Dayan who was the Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs with an unnamed Egyptian newspaper that Israel was ready to pay compensation to families of the 900 Egyptian prisoners massacred by Israeli soldiers during the wars of 1956 and 1967 and that those acts did not represent the Hebrew State…etc.

Here is the original article and its English translation.

I do not recall that interview but I believe the French newspaper could have quoted Al Ahram newspaper. It is very important statement for sure and I do not have to bet that in the original interview Dayan said the following : “Israel is ready to pay compensation for the 900 Egyptian prisoners if they were proven to be murdered by the IDF” because after few days we found in the same newspaper a small news saying that Shimon Perez , the new Prime minister then promised to open an investigation in to the matter in order to calm down the Egyptian angry public then despite the Israel’s Attorney General back then “Michael Ben-Yair” had ruled that there was no basis for prosecuting soldiers for wars crimes or offenses as he had described it in 1956 and 1967 war because of a 20 years limitation on homicide charges !! The attorney general did not considered the crimes against our POWs as war crimes !!

Here is the second article and its English translation

Al Jazeera International’s First Person:Egyptian POWs

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This old video below goes back to 2007 in the 40th anniversary of the Six Days war and it shows  Ex-Sergeant Amin Ramadan who speaks about his experience in captivity at notorious Atlit along his friend and co-worker for 40 years Goma’a Hassan who is still suffering from physical injury hunting him down since the Atlit days. I talked about this video in 2007 as a report that was published in Al Jazeera international , I did not know that it was based upon a video that aired on the channel but it is never too late.

Ramadan and Gomaa

Ramadan who has become a kind of an activist for the 1967 POWs , is already suing the Israeli government among others for a just compensation on what they have seen and suffered on the hands of the IDF in 1967. His testimony is from the important living testimonies that prove the involvement of Ben-Eliezer in the mistreatment and abuse of our POWs against international laws.

Huge Difference

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One may wonder how the Egyptians treated Israeli POWs , Maj. Gen. Hassan Al-Gandali, a former chief of operations of the Egyptian army, said there were a number of Israeli POWs in Egyptian camps in 1973. “We were very much concerned about their welfare, though we were aware of the way the Israelis had dealt with our POWs under their custody,” Hassan said.

“As I was the chief of operations, I accompanied Egyptian Defense Minister Musheer Ahmad Ismail to the camp in which Col. Esaf Yagouri and 150 prisoners were kept. On seeing us the prisoners looked so terrified as they seemed to think that we were going to send them to the firing squad in return for what Israel had done to the Egyptian POWs in the past. On the other hand, Musheer told them that he did not blame them for obeying the orders of their superiors though it was to occupy a territory belonging to another country. ‘However, you will be treated in line with the Geneva Conventions. So you have nothing to worry about,’ Musheer said.

“Then he asked the commander of the camp about the sick POWs and took special care of them. He also ordered the camp commander to take the POWs for sightseeing in Cairo, including a trip to the pyramids and a boat ride on the Nile. After a few moments of disbelief the prisoners broke into a deafening applause. This is how the Egyptians treat their prisoners of war.”

From Israel’s Hush-Up Machine in Action : Denying story Israel executed Egyptian prisoners.

This is for those who wonder how things would be they were the other way around !!

Of course for those who may disbelieve Major General Al-Gandali I would like them to read the comment of Mr. Eran Jacoby

Dr.Cherif Bassiouni,The Man Who Wants Justice To Our 1956 POWs

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Dr. Cherif Bassiouni is a well known name in the war crimes investigations after all  he was the man who headed the Chairman, of the Security Council’s Commission to Investigate Violations of International Humanitarian Law in the Former Yugoslavia still it is unknown to most people that this man was behind the first Israeli confession of its kind : The murder of our POWs in the Suez war by the IDF.

Dr.Bassiouni
Dr.Bassiouni

In 1995 Maariv made an interview with Aryeh Biro , the former general and the so-called special force hero..etc in his house in Tel Aviv where he confessed that he killed Egyptian POWs in 1956 with no regret and this was just the surface for much deeper and darker war crimes as we all know

It turned out that Dr.Cherif had a very important role in this case , in fact the most important if I may say. The 1956 POWs case is a life case for Bassiouni who fought in the Suez War and when he knew about the POWs in 1967 he began to study our wars with Israel more and more. He chose the Suez war because he knew it well plus of course he lived it. For 20 years he began to search till he found out that the IDF had killed 41 military at the Metla path and 39 laborers 6 kilometers away from the path.

Dr.Cherif went to our minister of Foreign affairs then in 1995 Amr Moussa with huge file that could be the basis of a strong war crimes case , Moussa immediately took the file and Bassioui and met with President Mubarak who demanded an immediate action. Mubarak demanded late Rabin to investigate these claims ((as if Rabin would have done it)) but Rabin refused claiming that if Egypt officially opened its POWs rights, Israel would go and claim its POWs’ rights in 1973 ((nothing happened actually to their POWs in 1973 War)) and Clinton too had interfered in the matter causing it to be closed officially forever leaving for the citizens in front of the state’s courts as we all know.

This is Dr.Cherif’s testimony and I believe if we can contact the man again now , he will not refuse to help us as citizens to restore back our POWs rights even if we try and fail , trial is enough

Source : Al Masry Al Youm

Wael Mmdouh : Wait For More

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I did a quick online interview with Egyptian journalist Wael Mmdouh who re-opened again the Egyptian POWs file in the Egyptian media in a way like no other. I asked him several questions about his report and he was kindly enough to answer my questions.

Egyptian POWs.net:  what made you search for the mass graves of the Egyptian POWs in this way that one has ever done and that was the beginning of the interview??

Journalist Wael Mmdouh
Journalist Wael Mmdouh

At first I was not sure that I was going to find mass grave like I have done, I only wanted to prove that these mess graves do exist; through research and the cooperation of the locals I was able to be sure completely that there are mass graves and thus I started to take this lead with the help of some of the locals; I also looked for eye witnesses to tell me the circumstance of the POWs murder and its right time and date.

Egyptian POWs.net: Did you meet any difficulties while talking with the locals??

Of course I did meet several difficulties while talking with the locals in the area , especially it is a desert area that does not accept strangers easily which made even harder ; the people there do not accept to speak with strangers easily and they never trust them at all.

At the end I was able to find some locals who had strong relations with eyes witnesses and those took care to win the confidence of the people there and assuring that I only seek the truth and that no names would be mentioned if requested and that what happened.

Still despite all this we met difficulties, for instance after agreeing with one of the sources near the Halal mount to speak and after long time in the way to get him, we found him refusing to speak to us ; I had to thank him in the end despite I could not document his testimony nor did he guide us to that mass grave “which is the biggest” between the mass graves I found yet this did not stop me to search for the rest mass graves and find them in the end besides documenting the witnesses’ testimonies.

Egyptian POWs.net: Did the security or the official authorities stand against the research or there was not an interest or completely absence!!??

This did not happen because I took my precautions in order to finish my reportage without the knowledge of the authorities and this is better because I can’t be their reaction for reportage like this; the authorities did not know about my reportage except when it was published.

Egyptian POWs.net: What was your feeling when you hold the bones of our POWs in your hand??

Frankly I can’t describe my feeling then, it was so difficult that you can imagine and it is enough to say that I stop working and speaking after burying the bones that appeared in the video. I could not continue working; I did not say one single word except after leaving the middle zone.

Egyptian POWs.net: Why did not you show the complete video especially in the mass graves in Dostor Channel??

It was for technical reasons, as YouTube does not allow long news material or documentaries, still it was required to be a short news report to support the story with photos and videos. I recorded long interviews but it would take long time to upload and download which will be bad for the readers. Already there is an idea to produce a long documentary with the testimonies and footage for the mass graves.

Egyptian POWs.net: Are there more pictures for the mass graves??

Yes there are more photos that will be published later in Dostor newspaper and its official websites for the sites as a follow up.

Besides there is a file from audio testimonies and photos currently prepared to help the legal committee which is being formed by Ambassador Ibrahim Youssry currently in order to sue the Israeli war criminal in the coming days.

Egyptian POWs.net: Has there been any official reaction you knew about regarding this reportage??

Officially there has been no reaction as if this reportage were published in another country, as if these soldiers were not Egyptians but off the record I know from personal sources that there are Egyptian Israeli moves to absorb the situation and not to escalate it like the gas issue, well I hope they fail.

Egyptian POWs.net: Will there be new material added to the report??

Of course there will be more to be revealed in the coming days especially the reportage was met with huge successful as I got many phone calls from people who want to document their testimonies and the physical evidences they have concerning the occupation era, this besides the people of Rafah, Sheikh Zowaid and on the borders villages who wanted to talk about the mass graves they found and feared to talk about. I think this report will continue and I will discover through it the biggest number of Israeli crimes to be documented.

Egyptian POWs.net: Did you document any of the sites on maps like Google maps??

It has not been done yet but I have the coordination of the middle zone on paper maps in order to prepare more precise maps to include the new cemeteries in the coming days.