Camp David didn't stop it. Al-Awja attack brings to mind Egyptian operations against Israelis

CAIRO — "Suleiman Khater Jadid," Egyptians described the martyr soldier Mohamed Salah, who carried out an unprecedented operation on June 3, in which three Israeli soldiers were killed near the Al-Awja border crossing between Egypt and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Salah – after revealing his identity – became in the eyes of most Egyptians a hero and a popular icon, and a symbol of the continued popular rejection of normalization of relations with Israel, despite the signing of the peace treaty in 1979, which confirms that the crimes of the occupation against the Egyptians have not been forgotten, and that Egyptian popular support for the Palestinian cause will remain.

Talk has returned again of the operations of Egyptian soldiers who preceded Salah in carrying out operations against the Israelis in the post-Camp David era, most famously Suleiman Khater and Ayman Hassan.

The popular rally around Operation Salah – nicknamed "the pride of the Arabs" – was increased by the Israeli media's publication of testimonies of former and current Israeli army officers and soldiers saying that they killed Egyptian soldiers on the border over the past years, without announcing this, and that Operation Salah was revenge for his colleagues.

The Israeli media publishes the confessions of current and former officers and soldiers that they killed Egyptian soldiers on the border over the past years without announcing anything about it, can the Egyptian people know the names of their sons victims, and what was done about these crimes?, Why do you give the impression of the cheapness of Egyptian blood to this extent?!

— Jamal Sultan (@GamalSultan1) June 8, 2023

Egyptian Championships

Mohamed Salah's operation recalled the two most famous operations carried out by two Egyptian recruits against Israeli forces after 1979, in the border area.

The first and most famous of these operations was carried out by the Egyptian soldier Suleiman Khater, on the fifth of October 1985, when he shot at a group of Israelis who tried to bypass his guard point in the Ras Cyrenaica area (South Sinai), and refused to obey his warnings to them to retreat according to military custom, killing 7 of them.

Khater, who holds a university degree in law (Bachelor of Law), surrendered to his leadership and was referred to the military court by a presidential decree, despite the fact that the constitution provided for the trial of policemen before the civilian judiciary, and on December 28, 1985, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Khater, who had memories of the Bahr al-Baqar massacre and other Israeli massacres, commented on the verdict, saying, "I do not fear death or intimidate it, it is God's decree and destiny, but I fear that the verdict that will be issued against me will have bad effects on my colleagues, and make them afraid and kill their patriotism."

Only 10 days passed until the media announced the news of the suicide of soldier Suleiman Khater on the seventh of January / January 1986, in the military prison hospital, amid widespread suspicions and accounts denying his suicide, to turn Khater into a popular symbol to defend the soil of the homeland and reject normalization.

Revenge for Al-Aqsa and knowledge

The second operation that did not enjoy the fame of Operation Suleiman Khater – despite its qualitative superiority and the number of Israeli deaths in it – was the commando operation carried out by Egyptian conscript Ayman Hassan in 1990 in retaliation for the Al-Aqsa massacre that took place at that time, and the desecration of the Egyptian flag by Israeli soldiers.

Hassan managed to sneak across the border into the occupied territories on November 26, 1990, killing 21 Israelis and wounding about 20 others, including a senior Mossad operative responsible for securing the Dimona nuclear reactor and officers at the Negev military airport.

Ayman Hassan surrendered to the Egyptian authorities, was referred to a military trial, and sentenced to 12 years in prison on April 1991, <>, and unlike Khater, Ayman Hassan was treated well by his jailers and some of his commanders in the armed forces.

Blood on the border

While the Israeli crimes that have recently begun to unfold have not been made public in recent years, the border area has witnessed dozens of public incidents in the past two decades in which Egyptian officers, soldiers and citizens have been killed by Israeli occupation forces under the pretext of wrong targeting or attempts to penetrate the border and smuggling, some of which we monitor in the following paragraphs:

• April 2001: Egyptian Milad Muhammad Hamida was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, who claimed he was trying to infiltrate Gaza through the Salah al-Din gate.
• June 2001: Egyptian conscript Sayyid al-Gharib Muhammad Ahmad was killed by Israeli gunfire near the border.
• November 18, 2004: Three Egyptian soldiers from the Central Security Forces were killed while on guard duty in the Egyptian border area of Rafah by a shell fired by an Israeli tank, followed by indiscriminate firing by Israeli soldiers towards the scene of the explosion.

The Israeli authorities claimed that the tank crew believed that the three soldiers were a Palestinian cell planning an attack against Israeli forces, and that their targeting was "a professional error due to the misidentification of the three individuals."

• June 2, 2006: Egyptian policemen Mohamed Badawi Mohamed Siddiq and Ayman Sayed Mohamed Hamed were killed by Israeli forces.

At the time, the occupation authorities justified their crime by saying that the two policemen stormed the border near Jabal Saji, facing the Egyptian border town of Bir al-Ma'in, and opened fire on Israeli soldiers, but Egyptian security sources said that the two policemen crossed the border by mistake while on patrol.

IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy walks near the site from which the martyr Muhammad Salah (IDF) infiltrated

• January 27, 2008: Israeli soldiers shot dead 41-year-old Egyptian citizen Humaidan Suleiman Swailem as he was on his way to work.
• February 27, 2008: Samah Nayef, 14, was killed by Israeli forces in front of her house near the Kerem Shalom crossing.
• May 21, 2008: Israeli forces assassinated Suleiman Ayed Musa, 32, for allegedly infiltrating into the occupied territories near Kerem Shalom, and the next day assassinated Ayesh Suleiman Musa, 32, at the al-Awja crossing.
• July 9, 2008: Egyptian army officer Muhammad al-Qurashi was killed by Israeli fire while chasing smugglers at the border, and Israeli authorities claimed that their investigation concluded that al-Qurashi entered the occupied territories and was accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers.
• September 24, 2008: Israeli forces kill Suleiman Sweilam, 26, from al-Qasima area (central Sinai), for allegedly trying to sneak across the border for smuggling.
• June 2010: Israeli forces shot dead three Egyptians in three separate incidents claiming they were smugglers: Muhammad Awad Suleiman, 3, Salman Attia Salman, 3, and Muhammad Abd al-Hamid.
• August 18, 2011: An officer and four Egyptian Central Security Forces recruits are killed inside the Egyptian border after being attacked by an Israeli aircraft.
• March 2, 2012: Israeli border guards kill an Egyptian youth from a Sinai tribe, for allegedly infiltrating into occupied territory near the international sign No. 22 south of the Rafah crossing, to smuggle tobacco and cigarettes.

During the same period, dozens of Egyptian soldiers and civilians were injured by Israeli gunfire, and the publication of such incidents ceased in the following years.