CAIRO — Residents of al-Ajamaeen, a village in Egypt’s southwestern province of Fayoum, held funeral services for Abdallah Ramadan Ashri, an Egyptian soldier who was killed on May 27 in an exchange of fire with Israeli forces on the border between Egypt and Gaza. The village residents mourned him with chants of “Ashaheed Habibullah,” which means “the martyr is God’s beloved” in Arabic.
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Yet the Egyptian military did not name the soldier, as it usually does, and did not elaborate on his duties. In a statement in Arabic, it described the young man as “one of the elements.” And it said in an English statement that it “is conducting an investigation by the relevant authorities regarding the incident of gunfire in the border area of Rafah, which led to the martyrdom of one of the personnel assigned to the protection duty.”
The military also did not hold an official military funeral service for Ashri, which is customary for troops killed in the fights against militants in Sinai Peninsula in recent years. Moreover, the tightly-controlled Egyptian media removed the word “element” from its coverage, sparking uproar on social media, notably in response to the military’s statement on X.
Online upset
“Is Egyptian blood cheap?!” one user wrote of to the lack of response from the Egyptian government to Ashri’s death.
The London-based Arabic international newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Israeli television reported on the killing of the Egyptian soldier before the Egyptian military’s announcement. Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X on May 27 that an investigation was underway in what he called “a shooting incident on the Egyptian borders.” He said Israeli authorities were communicating with their Egyptian counterparts.
“They want to implicate Hamas.”
Egypt said the initial investigation found that the soldier was killed following his response to a shoutout between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants on the border area, according to Egypt’s state-linked Al Qahera News.
The announcement also sparked uproar on social media, where users say the findings suggest that Egypt was trying to prove that the soldier was killed by a stray bullet, which could be fired by Palestinian militants. One user said that the statement’s wording suggested that the soldier could have been killed by a Hamas fire: “They want to implicate Hamas.”
Border heat
In an effort to calm upset, Egypt’s military has reiterated that it protect the country’s borders and that its forces are fully prepared for any scenario.
The military has yet to announce the extent of forces’ readiness, as well as the security of the eastern borderline and the soldiers stationed in the area along with Gaza and Israel. Despite media rhetoric that Egypt is ready for any aggression by Israel, the government is still confused in the face of Israel’s geographical aggressions.
Along with the Rafah crossing, Israel said it controlled the Philadelphia corridor, the buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt which is demilitarized according to the security arrangements of the peace treaty between the two countries.
Because it is almost impossible for independent journalists to access to the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, there is way to verify the safety of the Gaza-Egypt border and the soldiers stationed in the area.
In a Facebook post on Feb. 7, Ashri criticised Israel’s war on Gaza and the silence of a world that is “deaf, dumb and blind,” writing that his “heart is mourning and eyes are weeping.” Little did he know that grief and pain would be sensed by his family and many Egyptians a few months later.
