Cairo -

“We are the workers who were killed in front of the factory in Abu Zaabal, we sing to the world and recite the addresses of the future granaries.” With these words, the Egyptian poet Salah Jahin began a poem recording the heinous massacre carried out by the Israeli occupation against the workers of the Abu Zaabal Iron and Steel Factory 52 years ago.

Dozens of simple workers were martyred and injured as a result of the Israeli Phantom planes bombing the factory with missiles and napalm bombs on these days in 1970, specifically in the early hours of February 12, and large parts of the factory were turned into wreckage and rubble, but the crime of the occupation was unable to break The Egyptians were determined at the time, and the factory returned to work after a few days.

While the factory and its workers withstood the bombing and destruction, the train of public sector privatization that was launched during the era of the late President Hosni Mubarak in the nineties of the last century came to bring the factory down by a knockout and end the history of a national industrial edifice that had served the country for decades.

Beginning of the story

The history of the establishment of the National Company’s factory for the production of iron from scrap in the Abu Zaabal area in the center of Khanka, north of the capital Cairo, dates back to 1946, when the (Abu Zaabal Iron Factory) was established with a capital of 120,000 Egyptian pounds.

The factory started production using open diesel-powered furnaces to melt scrap from the remnants of World War II, and the factory owned a "Sumner Martin" furnace, which was the first of its kind in the whole of the Middle East.

The area on which the factory was built reached 106 acres, where the rolling mill was built on 50 acres, and another 50 acres were allocated for furnaces and warehouses, and 6 acres for the sports club.

In the sixties of the last century, the factory underwent nationalization to become a public sector company affiliated with the National Company for Metallurgical Industries.

The factory’s production capacity in 1970 amounted to about 75,000 tons of rebar used in construction, according to statements by then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in his May Day speech after the factory was bombed.

Israeli massacre

The year 1970 came and the war of attrition that Egypt was waging against the Israeli occupation was at its most intense. On February 11, 1970, the Egyptian forces succeeded in carrying out a qualitative operation against the occupation forces in the Al-Shaloufa area in the occupied Sinai, and succeeded in killing and wounding 20 Israeli soldiers, and capturing two others from the heart of forts Occupation.

The operation left Israel in a state of hysteria, and as usual, it did not find a way to respond except by targeting civilians and perpetrating a brutal massacre of innocents.

In the early hours of the next morning, two Israeli Phantom planes headed to the Abu Zaabal area (18 km from Cairo) and bombed the Abu Zaabal Iron Factory with missiles, napalm bombs and time bombs.

About 1,300 factory workers found themselves under a barrage of brutal bombardment, and one of the missiles hit the maintenance and repairs workshop, while another missile hit the factory's transformer station and part of the rolling unit.

The massacre resulted in the death of 88 workers and the injury of 150 others, most of whom suffered severe burns, as Abdel Nasser emphasized in his speech, noting that the losses amounted to 350 thousand Egyptian pounds.

Witnesses from the village of Abu Zaabal said, in previous statements to local newspapers, that the people rushed to transport the injured to hospitals in the factory cars, and collected the remains of the remains of the victims and martyrs in plastic barrels.

Israeli justification

“It seems that one of the Israeli pilots made a mistake and hit a civilian target.” With this simplicity, the military spokesman of the occupation army tried to justify the heinous crime, and later another Israeli statement was issued saying that the investigations concluded that throwing bombs on a civilian target was due to a “technical defect.”

However, what reveals the falseness of the Israeli claims is that the bombing came from a low altitude, as the reports confirmed at the time, and the planes began throwing time bombs to target rescue teams and ambulances that rushed to the factory after it was bombed.

The factory did not stop for long after the Israeli bombing, and gradually returned to work after only 21 days.

Beginning of the End

For years, the factory continued its work, until the policy of privatizing the public sector pursued by the Mubarak regime began in the nineties of the last century, to begin the end story of a factory whose products contributed to the construction of the High Dam and the construction of missile defense walls that were used in the confrontations with Israel.

The beginning of the end was with businessmen close to the regime seeking to control strategic industries, especially iron and steel, which belonged to businessman Ahmed Ezz, a leader in the ruling National Democratic Party and a close friend of Gamal Mubarak, son of the former president.

Ezz Steel companies were established in 1994 and their activity began to escalate at the expense of its competitors from the public sector companies, while the government at the time issued a number of decisions that contributed to restricting the local steel industry.

With the intensification of competition and the multiplicity of obstacles, came the year 1999 to issue the decision to stop the Abu Zaabal Iron Factory from work and lay off its workers, turning the factory into piles of scrap and abandoned buildings.

By 2002, the National Company for Metal Industries announced the liquidation of the factory due to its debts, which amounted to about one and a half billion pounds. The factory was auctioned in 2008 to be awarded to an Emirati investor with an amount of 460 million pounds. Waiting for a miracle.

The January revolution came in 2011, and the Mubarak regime and many of its businessmen left, and a glimmer of hope returned to the factory workers in bringing it back to life after reversing the decision to liquidate. Hope increased after the late President Mohamed Morsi announced in May 2013 in his May 2013 speech to celebrate Labor Day the suspension of the privatization program for companies Public sector.

At the time, Morsi showed a keen interest in the iron and steel industry and chose the Iron and Steel Complex in Helwan as a place to celebrate Labor Day.

But Morsi’s rule ended quickly following the army’s intervention in the summer of 2013, and the government of Engineer Ibrahim Mahlab came in 2014 with new hope when it agreed to reopen and operate the factory. A committee of experts was formed to discuss the possibility of quickly restarting the factory, but the matter did not go beyond decisions without practical steps. The factory remains closed.

Although many experts confirmed that the factory could return to work if the government wanted, they attributed its unwillingness to trying to make use of the land on which the factory is located.

In this context, the economist Medhat Nafeh attributes the failure of all attempts to sell, revive or develop the Abu Zaabal Factory, to the existence of beneficiaries from the survival of its remains in this way, such as tons of scrap, destroyed cables, and empty land tempted to infringe upon it.

In a series of articles entitled "Egyptian Iron and Steel... The End Scene", Nafeh, who held the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Holding Company for Metallurgical Industries (March 2018 - June 2020), reveals that he took many decisions to liquidate the company, including converting its land to a residential purpose, And the success of auctions to sell what he described as neglected blocks in the company, which were hindering the exploitation of the land, he said.

Planning Minister Hala Al-Saeed says that #Egypt is moving forward with selling stakes in state-owned companies every month or two and will soon list the various sectors of the economy that will be opened to private investment, according to "Reuters" pic.twitter.com/PSUC0aZ8qn

- Al Jazeera Egypt (@AJA_Egypt) January 25, 2022

privatization again

To this day, the factory lies dead, and its equipment and machinery are sold as scrap, while businessman Ahmed Ezz has returned to his strong activity in the iron industry and recently bought through his company, El Ezz Dekheila Steel, businessman Ahmed Abu Hashima’s share in the Egyptian Steel Company to manage steel plant projects, while another was liquidated. Castles of the government iron and steel industry, which is the Egyptian Iron and Steel Company (Helwan Factory, south of Cairo) in early 2021.

And recently, privatization has re-emerged, after the Egyptian Minister of Planning Hala Al-Saeed announced last January that her country is working to sell stakes in state-owned companies every month or two, and will soon list the various sectors of the economy that will be opened to private investment.

In 2018, Egypt identified 23 state-owned companies for privatization, but nearly all sales were postponed, partly due to market turmoil partly related to the Corona pandemic.