Were They Collected As Trophies From Murdered POWs ??

Nobody saw this coming nor expected something similar like this to happen , as a son of a late Israeli paratrooper decided to return back the ID and letters his dad collected from the dead Egyptian soldiers and officers in  the six days war to the families of those soldiers and officers. He decided to give them back to Yedoit Ahronot to help him in locating the relatives and relatives of these soldiers and officers “where is our embassy??”   Theses families and relatives  have been awaiting for 42 years to know anything about their men who went to that war and never came back.These souvenirs were telling the story from the other side according to the newspaper which gave me the impression that they do not consider us as humans who have a life too !!!?

The souvenirs include IDs,photos,permissions, letters and diaries of soldiers and officers on the front you can see them below here

Here are the names of these late officers and soldiers God bless their souls mentioned in the report :

  1. Ali Hassan Ali , a solider from Cairo who was born in 1905 and used to work as a conductor
  2. Fathi Abdel Khalek Shahin from Sharkia , who owned a pastry shop and was a musician at the same time ; Mr.Shahin was ready to sing in weddings and parties.
  3. Hassan Salim Agowa , a solider who took a leave from the base from 30/4/1967 to 1/5/1967 ; a very short leave indeed
  4. EAF officer Mohamed Ibrahim who took a leave and returned back to his fate.
  5. Soldier Mahmoud Ibrahim , No. 904841 in in unit 451031 who used to write his memories where he said that his unit captured 8 IDF soldiers
  6. Galal Said Abdel Hamid from Ismailia who lived at no.5 at the Plage street
  7. Mahmoud Abed

Yedoit Ahronot published this as a special report and I do not know if they expect  the level of controversy they will create back in Egypt as this report , these souvenirs will open the door of the Egyptian POWs files again and thank God they will do it.

Some people including me believe that these souvenirs were taken from Egyptian murdered POWs and this is because some reasons :

1- The newspaper for some unknown reason did not identify the name of the Israeli paratrooper nor his son , only “Y” ; why are they afraid from mentioning his full name ?? Already I believe we should thank the son of Mr. “Y” for his desire to return those stuff to where they do really belong !!??

The fact that they hid his name and the name of his family not to mention the detail of his father’s military background as which battalion he used to be at .. etc except that he is a paratroop raises many questions.

2- The father wanted to return these stuff to Egypt for decades but he was afraid and I only wonder the reason behind; why he was afraid from returning back these stuff to the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv ; was he afraid from accountability and that our diplomats may ask questions on how he got them other than he took from dead Egyptians.

3- Some people believe that Mr. Y, the father was a member in Shaked battalion but I doubt it because Shaked was not the only battalion that killed our POWs. Also if he were from Shaked battalion I would bet that these souvenirs would have been destroyed by now to protect Ben Elizer from any accountability.

4-The father said nothing to his son about the circumstance of the fights

The son of that paratrooper decided to return back these Egyptian collectibles  after the death of his father by a year and half.

I believe the least thing our embassy in Tel Aviv must do is to restore these items immediately and return back to rightful owners, we need to have them back. I do not even dare to ask them to investigate who that Mr. Y was !!

P.S Al Shorouk Newspaper is calling the families of these men in the photos to contact the newspaper and share their stories.

Free Mossad Abu Fagr And Give The Locals Their Rights

Mossad Abu Fagr is an Egyptian blogger, writer and novelist from Sinai who is currently in jail for years now for no announced official reason.

Abu Fagr
Abu Fagr

This website does not get involved in the political issues of Egypt unrelated to our issue : The lost rights of POWs in our history but it has to speak about Mossad this time. It is a not a secret that the conditions between the locals in Sinai and the regime back in Cairo are not that good and solid due to the misunderstanding and short vision of the Egyptian regime with my all respect to it. The locals in Sinai ,especially those in Al Arish were those who buried our dead Egyptian POWs after being killed in the streets of the city by the IDF, they were the ones who gave shelter to those officers and soldiers who managed to flee from that on going carnage , they treated them if they were injured and they even helped them to return back to motherland from the occupied land despite that would cost them their lives and the lives of their beloved ones.

I believe it is the least thing we can do is we give to who those buried our men in their land and protected them all those years the right of land ownership. These people up till now remember very well where our men were buried and in fact they share the locations of the graves from generation to another least they forget and die without letting the world know about it.

Mossad was calling for that right among other rights and this is why I am speaking him on this day.

Giving the locals at Sinai the rights they want is the least thing we can do for those Egyptians who are ready to testify in front of the whole world about what happened there from more than 40 years.

Remembering the 1956 War POWs

Yesterday the world celebrated the Armistices day aka the remembrance day in several countries around the world like the UK and the States. Also in the Middle East Lebanese party and militia Hezbollah celebrated and remembered its men who were killed in action in the wars against the Israeli occupation to South Lebanon.

On this day I remember all the Egyptians who were killed and were captured during the 1956 Suez War especially in Port Said ; the great city which was nearly destroyed in the Anglo-French attack.

Also I will not ever forget those great Egyptian POWs who were slaughtered in a cold blood in Sharm Sheikh by the IDF.

I remember today our POWs in 1967 and 1973 too.

May be the government has forgotten our POWs , our heroes and our veterans but some of us have not forgotten them at all.

POW No.36715 Speaks

Steps on  steps on a jailed landa jailed land
Steps on a jailed land

POW No.36715 is Mohamed Hussein Yunis who was captured by the IDF during the six days war 1967 and he has published a new edition from his memories about this tough experience. The book is called “Steps on jailed land” and it was published by “Dar Al-Shorouk” in Cairo in 2008 after its first print in 1982. The memories are like a novel , conversations between a POW who just had returned back home and his psychiatrist

Yunis describes the feelings of humiliation the Egyptian soldiers and officers whether in the six days war itself or their capture in Atlit prison. He describes in details both the physical and psychological warfare the Israeli army practiced against the Egyptian POWs.

According to critics the book is a documentary written by the feelings of a poet and the spirit of artist , an artist with No.36715.

Unfortunately the book is currently available in Arabic and in Egypt only for the time being , you can find it in book stores in Egypt especially Al-Shorouk Bookstores

Never Seen Before Photos

During the times of wars it is a normal thing that the news and the photos coming from the war zone is filtered , media is very powerful double edged weapon in time of war that can affect the people’s spirit whether positively or negatively , if you search in our modern history you will find out that during the times of war even the biggest democracies in the world had to censor and filter the news and photos coming from the war zone especially those issued by the enemy.

For that particular reason I am not surprised or shocked that the Nasser regime did not publish the photos the Israelis released to the wire services from humiliating shots to our Egyptian POWs during the captivity.There are many photos in this website Egyptians have not seen for decades , they only heard about their details and circumstance from the 1967 veterans who survived that shocking defeat , for sure the veterans accounts were even much horrible than those photos.

I have never stopped to search for new material from photos and accounts to add to the website and fortunately through our Egyptian groups in facebook I found couple of photos that led to huge patch of photos that have never been published to public in Egypt. I found the photos in Magnum Photo agency . Most of these photos were taken by Israeli photographers who accompanied the IDF during the war like for instance Micha Bar Am

Micha Bar Am on the Suez Canal in 1967
Micha Bar Am on the Suez Canal in 1967

The photos I found are very sad and can be provocative to any Egyptian , you do not have to live during that era to feel how sad to see such moments , seriously I understand why the Egyptian regime then had decided not to publish these photos. (( Of course I am totally against the decision of the regime then to lie on the public in the first hours of the defeat))

I added the new photos to the photos section in 1967 , already I will show some of them below here too

I must warn the Egyptian visitors that some of the shots are really shocking

Left on the beach
The remaings of an Egyptian officer
The underwear parade
The underwear parade
Passing By
Passing by
Shall I guess their fate ??
Blindfolded POWs
Hands up
Hands Up

This was just the tip of the ice-berg, already from the photos you find violations to international laws and human rights treaties and agreements.

In 1967 just like Micha Bar Am was in the Israeli side we had our legendary Akhbar Al Youm Photographer Ahmed Youssef  was in the Egyptian side ,he shot two set of films while the withdrawal from Gaza and Al Arish yet he hided his camera bag well before his capture in the desert by the IDF , he swore to my grandfather who was his friend and co-journalist in Akher Saa that he hided them well in some kind of boxes that would preserve them from the desert and time. The man till his death wanted so much to get back and retrieve those films because what he shot was a real evidence of war crimes against Egyptian POWs. I wish one day seriously that someone would find Ahmed Youssef’s camera.

BY the way I was very careful in my search for these lost photos because I found some photos that did not belong to the six days war and belong to other wars and other countries ; this was very sad because we do not need this.

Also if you want to save the photos or post them in your website , you are most welcome but please mention the Egyptianpows.net

The world should know what happened back then , we can get back the rights of these men if we want by law.

The Start of the Naksa

Naksa was the term the Nasserite Regime used to describe the Six days war defeat to lessen its effect.
Naksa means in Arabic “Set-back” ,the word “Defeat” was not used then.
Today is the memorial of the Naksa , our own definition of the six days war. Today from 42 years ago a human tragedy has started in Sinai where innocent people were killed brutality against international and even human laws and moral.
Today fro 42 years ago the agony of the Egyptians POWs has started and up till now it has not finished yet.
It will finish when those who killed those innocent men are punished just like the international laws say so

Egyptian POWs in 1967
Egyptian POWs in 1967

The 7th of June ; The civilians massacre in Sinai

Many of you think that militaries were only killed in massacres in Sinai by the hands of the IDF , well think again because there was the Faham El-Magrah Massacre in Sinai on the 7th of June 1967

Faham El-Magrah massacre

In the area of Faham El-Magrah where there are several mines a massacre took place there on the 7th of June 1967 where the IDF killed 272 Egyptian engineers and workers in one of the mines there

Of course that this is considered a complete violation for all treaties and all human values from treating the civilians during the war!!