The Egyptian public has, justifiably, been outraged by the recent revelations about the savageries of Israel’s Shakid Unit following the 1967 Middle East war. The unit was commanded by Ben Eliezer, the current Israeli minister of infrastructures.
The unit massacred the Egyptian prisoners of war taken in June 1967.
A documentary aired by the Israeli TV showed the details of the mass killing of the 400 Egyptian and Palestinian POWs carried out by the Shakid unit at the Arish camp in Sinai. 250 of the victims were Egyptians, and the rest Palestinians. It should also be remembered that Israeli historian Ariah Ishaki revealed in 1995 that the Jewish soldiers murdered 1,000 Egyptian POWs in 1967.
The documentary showed the brutal treatment of POWs on two days after the war by the Unit 101 under Ben Eliezer who commanded it from 1966 until 1970.
The documentary quotes a retired lieutenant colonel who worked in the unit as saying that when the war broke out in 1967, the unit was assigned to follow up Egyptian commandos in Sinai. The army supplied the unit with two helicopters and two aircraft for searching for the commandos.
The Israeli newspaper, Yehudiot Aharanot, reported in 1995 quoting a former Israeli brigadier of the Shakid Unit that he himself killed 49 Egyptian POWs at the Metlah Corridor following the 1956 war.
Commenting on the startling revelations of the documentary, Israeli peace activist and journalist Yuri Avneri said the track record of Ben Eliezer is fraught with war crimes against the Arabs. Avnery said that the Israeli Army committed a number of war crimes against Egyptian forces in Sinai in 1956 and 1967 besides blocking the water supply to the withdrawing forces. Not only the international law but the Israeli law as well does not condone the murder of the POWs. “Though I tried my best to draw the public attention to these war crimes, the Israel censorship did not allow me to proceed,” Avnery said.
The Egyptian government demanded at the time an investigation into these war crimes. However, the then Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin admitted the crimes in a meeting with Hosni Mubarak in Washington, according to a statement of the then Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres quoted by the Israeli Radio.
However, one may wonder how the Egyptians treated the Israeli POWs. Maj. Gen. Hassan Al-Garidali, a former chief of operations of the Egyptian Army, said that 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.
One day Egyptian Defense Minister Musheer Ahmad Ismail asked Hassan to accompany him to the camp where the Israeli POWs were held.
“As I was the chief of operations, I accompanied him 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 has 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, since you are prisoners of war 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 in 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.”
