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Israeli soldier near the Suez Canal during the Six Day War, 1967
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 5, 2007 |
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National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer decided to postpone a trip to Egypt Thursday to meet with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman and other diplomatic officials.
The decision came following the intense Egyptian press coverage of an Israeli film's caims that the unit under Ben Eliezer's command during the Six Day War was responsible for the killing of 250 unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war.
A spokesman for the infrastucture minister said that the trip was postponed due to the tense atmosphere in Egypt. He added that the film's claims are entirely false.
Ben Eliezer, meanwhile, has provided the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram with a detailed account of the facts of the incident in 1967.
"In the past few days the Arab press, and in particular the Egyptian press, has reported information claimed in a (Israeli) film that the Shaked commando unit under Fuad Ben Eliezer killed 250 Egyptian soldiers in the Six Day War 40 years ago.
"It is true that in one battle in that war, there was a confrontation between soldiers from the Palestinian fedayeen regiment, which operated in the Gaza Strip against Israel, and the unit which I commanded. They were not 'murdered,' as was claimed, but were killed in battle.
"The order I got was to wage battle against the Palestinian fedayeen regiment that was operating from the Strip, paralyzing southern Israel and causing dozens of casualties among the soldiers in my unit and in the IDF.
"To remove any doubt, an examination of the Southern Command's intelligence document, dated June 4, 1967, which by my request was transferred from the IDF's historical archive and details the deployment of enemy forces in the Strip, proves that the forces were the Palestinian Fedayeen battalion and not Egyptian troops.
"The confusion may have arisen from the historical fact that two days before the battle in question, the Shaked commando unit met an Egyptian unit, which had stopped fighting. The unit's soldiers helped the Egyptian regiment and gave them food and water," Ben Eliezer told the Egyptian paper, Ynetnews reported.
Film's producer claims Egyptian media distorted the facts
The producer of the Israeli documentary that has the Arab world and Egypt up in arms said Monday that the Egyptian media has distorted the facts presented in his film.
According to The Jerusalem Post, Ran Ederlist, the producer, told Army Radio that the incident in 1967 did not involve unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war, but Palestinian fighters killed in the heat of battle, as Ben Eliezer claimed.
"What happened was that there were (Israeli) fighters waging battle against a retreating (Palestinian) commando battalion," said Ederlist.
"During this battle, you could say there was excessive use of force, (but) it was all in the context of war -- not prisoners, not prisoner-of-war camps, not people who put their hands up."
Egypt summons Israel envoy
On Sunday, Egypt summoned Israel's envoy to Cairo to demand an explanation for the claims put forth in the film. The Egyptians also asked their ambassador in Tel Aviv to obtain a copy of the film from the Israeli government.
The atmosphere in the Egyptian government became very unfriendly and two ruling party lawmakers demanded the Israeli ambassador's expulsion.
"That dog of an Israeli ambassador must leave Egypt," Mahmoud Salim, a lawmaker from President Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party said, according to Ynetnews.
Another National Democratic Party lawmaker, Alaa Hassanein, said, "I demand the expulsion of that apostate Israeli ambassador and the withdrawal of the Egyptian ambassador from Israel."
Yet another ordered a special parliamentary session for a declaration of war on the Jewish state. |
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