The bombing of the gas line between Egypt and Israel .. The "masked" returned, so what is its new mission?

Abdel Rahman Ahmed - Cairo

Once again, the talk about the "masked" targeting the gas pipeline between Egypt and Israel, after the bombing of a gas pipeline in the Bir al-Abd area, north of Sinai, was struck on Sunday, two weeks after the start of pumping Israeli gas into Egypt, in a deal that sparked great controversy between the Egyptians.

Security sources said in statements reported by news agencies that six masked gunmen planted explosive materials under the tube, which is located in the Al-Touloul area, eighty kilometers west of the city of Al-Arish, then fled to the desert before the police or the army arrived, and no human casualties were recorded.

While sources told Al-Jazeera that the attackers targeted the international line between Egypt and Israel, the French Press Agency quoted security sources and eyewitnesses as saying that the pipeline is a domestic gas-supplied power plant in Al-Arish, the industrial zone and homes, in addition to cement factories in central Sinai.

History of Masked

Although the Sinai Province organization claimed responsibility for the accident later on Monday, the method of the bombing and its attribution to masked gunmen brought back memories to the Egyptians of the mysterious masked man who was attributed to the repeated bombing incidents of the Egyptian natural gas pipeline heading to Israel after the revolution of January 25, 2011, which he himself The line that is now being used in the opposite direction, that is, to import Israeli gas.

Nine years have passed since the first explosion of the Eastern Mediterranean pipeline, which transports Egyptian natural gas from Al-Arish to Ashkelon in the occupied territories, specifically on February 5, 2011.

During about a year and a half ago, the title of the "bombing of the gas pipeline in the Sinai" was a frequent guest on the media, with details of almost one, except for the escalating number of times of the explosion, which reached more than 15 times during that period.

With every bombing, a group of unidentified masked men was held responsible, and the title of masked person became a place scarred by the Egyptians, and he became a popular hero in the eyes of many.

Anonymous actor

Despite his being unknown, the masked operations were welcomed by a large group of those who refused to export Egyptian gas to Israel, which was carried out under a deal described by the opponents as suspicious, which was concluded by the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, and met with widespread popular opposition.

At that time, no party claimed responsibility for these explosions, which raised speculation about its perpetrators and their targets. Although security authorities repeatedly announced that they had information about the perpetrators of the attacks, no one was arrested, and the authorities ’promises to increase the security of the gas line did not prevent its repeated targeting operations.

This prompted activists and observers to accuse the ruling military council of its time of being behind these explosions, either by inaction and neglect, or in collusion with several motives, including distracting the people from demanding elections and handing over power, or to obtain international support for allegedly confronting terrorist groups in Sinai that threaten Israel.

The late political activist Mohamed Yusri Salama considered in an article titled "Diaries of the Revolution's Stress" in April 2012 that the masked operations in the bombing of the gas pipeline are part of many events "used by the administrators of the country and the media for distraction, misleading, attrition, stress, intimidation, amusement, distraction and dispersal, And other means of aborting and defrauding the revolution. "

Shame deal

At the time, some did not rule out that Israel was involved in such attacks, despite the apparent damage it suffered from the explosions and the subsequent cancellation of the gas deal, as the beginning of a new phase during which Tel Aviv received huge compensation and opened the door to deals to export Israeli gas to Egypt.

In April 2012, with the successive bombings of the gas pipeline, the Egyptian Gas Holding Company announced the cancellation of the gas export agreement to Israel, and the then company president, Muhammad Shuaib, justified the cancellation of the agreement with commercial disputes, not security concerns, noting "the failure of the other party to fulfill its contracting obligations."

This coincided with the issuance of a judicial ruling in June 2012 imprisoning former Egyptian Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmy and businessman Hussein Salem for 15 years for their involvement in exporting gas to Israel at low prices "the country incurred nearly $ 715 million", before they were acquitted later in February / February 2015.

Israel resorted to international arbitration after canceling the agreement, and paved the acquittal of the Egyptian officials involved in the deal the way to the issuance of the international arbitration decision in December 2015 to compel Egypt - represented by the Egyptian Gas Holding Company - to pay compensation of $ 1.76 billion to the Israeli Electricity Company.

Israel took advantage of the fine imposed on Egypt to impose another deal in which Tel Aviv accepts a reduction in the compensation that Cairo pays to about half a billion dollars, in exchange for concluding agreements that obligate Egypt to purchase 85 billion cubic meters of Israeli gas over a period of 15 years.

Israeli officials described the export of Israeli gas to Egypt as the most important agreement between the two countries since the signing of the Camp David treaty in 1979.

The agreement entered into force on January 15, 2020, despite its widespread opposition within Egypt, and the risks it poses to Egyptian national security, according to many experts, as well as Egypt's announcement of successive gas discoveries, which makes it not needing to import more.

And while the Egyptian government says that private companies are the ones who import Israeli gas to transport it to Europe through LNG factories in Egypt, media reports say that the company responsible for the deal is owned by Egyptian intelligence, similar to the late businessman Hussein Salem, who confirmed after the January revolution that All of his private business in gas export was from the Egyptian Intelligence Service.

The return of the masked

With the start of the export of Israeli gas to Egypt, the human rights activist Eid Al Marzouki expected that the Egyptian regime would resort to the masked again, as an external pressure card on Israel to provide more protection and international support to the Sisi regime, and internally to mobilize popular support on the pretext of stopping against terrorism.

Indeed, it did not take more than two weeks until the new bombing occurred and the masked man returned to the spotlight, and observers saw that, along with the previous reasons, this incident may be an excuse for the Egyptian authorities to evacuate new residential areas in the Sinai and displace its people.

And with reports that the explosion targeted a gas pipeline locally and not the international gas pipeline, some saw that "this explosion may be a climax of ashes in the eyes of those who are suspicious of stopping the masked explosions as soon as the current regime came to power."

Others thought that such operations might be used by the ruling regime as an excuse to justify a new increase in gas prices, the burden of which will be borne by ordinary citizens.