#6OctWar: The Memorial of Unknown Soldier in Cairo and the Memorial of Unknown Soldier in Gaza

It is always seen in Cairo, becoming one of its true modern landmarks in Nasr City.

It commemorates the fallen heroes of Egyptian soldiers and officers in the October 1973/Yom Kippur War.

The Memorial of the Unknown Soldier in Nasr City, Cairo 
Photographed by iPhone 

It is our fourth Pyramid, the Unknown Soldier Memorial in Nasr City.

It witnessed the assassination of President Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat on the 6 October 1981, eight years after the war and six years after the inauguration of the Memorial in 1975.

Although he wished to be buried at Wadi Al-Raha near Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa), Sadat was buried at Cairo’s Unknown Soldier Memorial, which he ordered to be built in 1974.

El-Sadat's funeral in October 1981 at the Uknonwn Solider Memorial

Egyptian artist and professor Sami Rafi designed the Memorial of the Unknown Soldier as a modern pyramid with the first names of Egyptian men engraved on its sides.

Speaking about the memorial is the only thing I think about writing on the anniversary of the 6 October 1973 War in Egypt as usual not in a celebratory way.

I uploaded a YouTube Short dedicated to the Egyptian soldiers but could not share it publicly or widely with that ongoing genocide happening in Gaz and extending to Lebanon.

The Memorial of Unknown Soldier in Cairo made me think about the Memorial of Unknown Soldier in Gaza.

Yes, Gaza has its own Memorial of the Unknown Soldier in its own Park.

The reinaugration of the Memorial of Uknown Solider in Caza
on 17 March 2004.

The park and the Memorial of the Unknown Soldier are considered the most important landmarks of Gaza City. Its location is at Omar El-Mokhtar Street in Gaza City. 

Yes, it is located on a street named after Libya's resistance icon Sheikh Omar El-Mokhtar

They were built during the Egyptian administration in the 1950s.

The memorial was built in 1957 by the orders of President Gamal Abdel Nasser to represent the sacrifices of the two brotherly peoples, Palestinian and Egyptian, and their defense of national rights, as well as the dignity and pride of both nations.

It was erected over the graves of eight fighters who bravely defended the city of Gaza in 1948.

It is said that among these eight martyrs, three were Palestinian while the other five were Egyptians

The Memorial of the Unknown Soldier consists of a concrete base about two meters high, which can be accessed by climbing six steps.

At the top stands a statue of a soldier in full military gear, holding a weapon in his right hand, while pointing with the index finger of his left hand towards the east (Jerusalem).

Engraved on the marble base on the first side is a map of Palestine, with a Quranic verse inscribed beneath it: 
“Do not consider those who have been killed in the way of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision.”

On the second side of the memorial is the Palestinian flag with its four colours, placed on a flagpole, beneath which is written the phrase:

"To unfurl once more after the flag is folded, and may hope to revive where pain faltered, God willing."

On the third side of the concrete base are lines of poetry that read: 
"Every free man's blood is tied to the homeland, 
A hand extended and a debt still owed."

On the fourth side, beneath a map of the Arab world, are verses from the Tunisian poet Aboul-Qacem Echebbi :   
"If one day, the people desire life, then fate must surely respond, 
and the night must end, and the chains must break."

It has been subjected to many attempts of vandalism and destruction over time. The Israeli army destroyed it during its occupation of the Gaza Strip in 1967.

The Palestinian Authority rebuilt the memorial thirty-three years after it was destroyed by the Israeli army in the 1967 Six-Day War. 

Here was Yasser Arafat saluting the Unknown Soldier Memorial in Gaza, located in a garden funded by Norway in 2004.

Arfat saluting the memorial and its soldier during the huge event

The Memorial then faced an attempt at destruction on December 6, 2006, when it was targeted by an Israeli missile strike.

Before and after the Israeli attack on Gaza's
 Memorial of  Uknobwn Solider on 6 December 2006

On June 14, 2007, it was blown up by extremist elements, and the Gaza Municipality restored it once again.

In November 2023, the Israeli army bombed Gaza’ Unknown Soldier Memorial and its public park destroying it.

The Memorial after the Israeli bombing in November 2023

Updated: Till 11 October, the Israeli army still bombs the area of the memorial madly.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Majdi Fathi (@majdi_fathi)

Inshallah It will be rebuilt again soon.

If you think that this is the only Unknown Soldier Memorial or technically a cemetery in Gaza related to Egypt and Egyptians you are completely wrong. 

In Deir El-Balah city's Commonwealth War Cemetery dedicated to the WWI foreign warriors, there is a special memory dedicated to the 285 Egyptian labour workers who were killed in the war and completely forgotten. 

I would not have known about them if I had not stumble that video of engineer and Gaza history expert Hisham El-Derawi. 

I really hope that El-Derawi and his family are okay despite all the odds in Gaza currently. His content is probably mostly needed now more than ever. 

That video made me search for more information and I found the following at the official website of the Common Wealth Graves : 

Deir El Belah was occupied by Commonwealth troops early in March 1917 and in April it became the railhead of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, with an aerodrome, camps and hospitals. The Egyptian Cemetery served the Egyptian Labour Corps camp and hospital. The cemetery contains 285 burials, all Egyptian Labour Corps, but none identified by name.

"None identified by name" .. this is literally the biggest unofficial Egyptian Memorial of uknown soldier across the Egyptian borders and yes they were not soldiers nor they were fighting their own country. 

The Egyptian Labour Corps in World War I is another Egyptian epic that has been largely overlooked, despite being immortalized in folk songs we still sing today, thanks to the legendary Sayed Darwish. Only recently have two bestselling books in Egypt brought attention to this forgotten sad chapter of history.

One of these books , is the Arabic translation of the "The Egyptian Labor Corps: Race, Space, and Place in the First World War" by Kyle J. Anderson.

There is also the Egyptian soldiers memorial inside the old Bureij cemetery inside Bureij Refugees Camp in Deir El-Balah also. 

It is unclear at least for me now when those Egyptian soldiers were killed whether in 1948 war or the Six Days war and how many they were. 

It is clear thought the Palestinians did not forget them like we have done unfortunately and they paid their respect to them in the past. 

The people of Burij paid their respect to our Egyptian soldiers in January 2021 
as an annual tradition. 

Those unknown soldiers are buried in the cemetery where famous Mohamed El-Dora was buried. I fear to check on the cemetery now knowing how the Israeli army desecrated almost all known cemeteries in Gaza in the past year. 

Interestingly , two of the Egyptian military cemeteries are located in Deir El-Balah.

Deir El-Balah, located in the central Gaza Strip, is believed to have been founded by the ancient Egyptians as a military post during the New Kingdom period, particularly in the 18th and 19th Dynasties (circa 1550–1069 BCE). 

This was a time when Egypt extended its influence over Canaan and the Levant, using fortified outposts to protect its northeastern borders and maintain control over trade routes.

There are other memorials for Egyptian soldiers in the West Bank but this is for another time inshallah.