It is Friday 13th : War Erupts Between Israel and Iran; Egypt First to Be Affected “Updated”

Friday, 13th June 2025 will be another unforgettable date in the Middle East.

In an unprecedented escalation, Israel launched a massive, coordinated operation under the name “Rising Lion” to strike deep into Iranian territory, targeting nuclear facilities and assassinating high-ranking military officials, mostly inside civilian areas.

The attacks caused widespread destruction in Tehran and other cities, reportedly killing over 400 people, mostly civilians, including children.

The operation, seemingly aimed at weakening the regime and sparking internal dissent, backfired as angry protests erupted not against the government, but in support of retaliation and accelerating Iran's nuclear ambitions, aka build nuclear bombs ASAP.

Friday evening, Iran launched a massive retaliatory strike—firing around 100–150 ballistic missiles (plus drones)—across at least two waves toward central Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Despite Israel’s air defenses that include US air defenses, the Iranian missiles breached and struck urban and military sites; one reportedly hit the IDF’s headquarters area in Tel Aviv, causing structural damage and injuring dozens—reports estimate 22–40 people hurt, with one civilian confirmed dead.

The barrage, code-named “True Promise” by the Iranian government, marked the first direct ballistic retaliation against Israel.

The scale and intensity of the strike mark a dangerous turning point. What the Iranians feared for 30 years has happened.

In other words, war broke out directly between Israel and Iran.

In some historical coincidence, it is Friday the 13^th, and it is June.

Many Egyptians, including I, considered what happened to Iran earlier Friday a micro-5 June 1967.

Iran has lived that 5 June 1967 morning, Egyptians had lived despite its military capabilities not being destroyed as Egypt on that bloody morning and thus started its retaliation on the same day in the evening.

Donald Trump brags about how he deceived the Iranians, who should have given up right now, according to him.

The Iranians said that they withdrew from that round of talks supposed to take place in Oman. It is the right move for anyone.

Oman was already the first country to condemn and attack the Israeli aggression. It announced that there would be a round of talks in Muscat between the Americans and Iranians over the Iranian nuclear program.

Now, all this is the summary of what happened on Friday the 13^th and as the world is watching closely what is happening and fears its repercussions.

Friday morning, which the official weekend, we found Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly held a meeting with Ministers of Electricity, Finance and Petroleum along with the acting Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (NBE) to discuss the government’s pre-prepared emergency concerning the priority of the natural gas supply aka gas supply for short.

What is the relationship between Egypt’s natural gas supply and the Israeli-Iranian war?

Huge relationship, as Israel closed down the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea in fear of Iranian retaliation.

Egypt imports Israeli gas. In 2023, Israel exported goods worth $2.23 billion to Egypt. The top exports were petroleum gas ($2.13 billion) and refined petroleum ($27.9 million).

Unfortunately, the Israeli gas has accounted for up to 60% of Egypt’s gas imports and roughly 20% of total national consumption.

I won’t go into how Egypt, which once was a gas exporting country, became an importing one or how Leviathan is actually an Egyptian-Palestinian gas field or how we did not turn into a gas exporting hub thanks to the Zohr gas field, which we overestimated its reserves.

This is the first blow for Egypt in this war.

Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources announced that it activated its pre-prepared emergency plan concerning the priorities of natural gas supply due to the war.

This includes halting gas supplies to certain industrial sectors and maximising the use of fuel oil (mazut) at power stations, as well as coordinating the operation of some stations on diesel.

Those industrial sectors are fertilisers factories, including those factories that export their products.

According to some reports, ten Egyptian fertiliser factories have stopped production.

“These measures come in response to the outbreak of military activity in the region and the interruption of natural gas supplies from the east.” The Egyptian oil ministry said in its statement, referring to the Israeli gas as gas supplies from the east.

Yes, it did not mention Israel and referred to it as “east” to avoid public controversy or rather anger, despite we all know what east here means.

The ministry added that three Floating Storage Regasification Units (FSRUs) have arrived in Egypt.

One vessel is currently regasifying and injecting natural gas into the national grid, while the other two are undergoing final preparations to be connected to ports and begin gas injection.

The gas network’s operations room continues to monitor the situation 24/7, confirming that the gas network remains stable and that mazut reserves are sufficient.

The Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy, along with the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, visited the National Gas Control Center to review the latest developments in the emergency plan.

The Minister of Petroleum also visited Ain Sokhna Port to accelerate the connection of the third FSRU to the national natural gas grid.

According to the ministry's statement, this action is precautionary, aiming to maintain the stability of the natural gas network and avoid implementing electricity load shedding, while awaiting the resumption of natural gas imports from the east.

It is unclear whether we will avoid implementing the electricity load shedding we used to have in the past summers or not.

Sources at the Ministries of oil and electricity told Masrawy on Friday that the return of load-shedding measures is being considered as a preliminary option, should the political situation continue to deteriorate, and instability persist in the region.

They explained that Egypt currently imports nearly 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from Israel, and the situation has become more complicated following the Israeli energy minister’s announcement of the sudden shutdown of one of Israel’s gas fields, in addition to delays in the readiness of the two floating regasification terminals in Ain Sokhna.

For the record, that government began to prepare its plan B, I believe a month ago, as news reports said that, as a result of tensions between Cairo and Tel Aviv over Gaza, Egypt began to search other sources of gas besides Qatar and Algeria.

Updated: Israel’s military struck a processing unit at the South Pars gas field, which is the world's largest gas field shared between Iran and Qatar. I do not want to imagine what this will do to the prices of gas worldwide.

Mada Masr interestingly reported that Israel cut gas exports to Egypt for the third time in less than two years, adding that in May, it cut the exports due to planned ten-day maintenance at the Leviathan megafield.

Either way, a new wave of fuel and energy price hikes is on the way.

There are other repercussions away from gas.

EgyptAir has cancelled its flights scheduled for today to Erbil, Baghdad, Amman, and Beirut until the airspace is reopened and air traffic resumes.

Updated: Egypt cancelled the mega-inauguration gala of the Grand Egyptian Museum on 3 July due to the current war.

It was planned to be a huge celebration attended by the leaders of the world, although it is not the best time for Western tourists in Cairo due to the heat.

The Museum inauguration is pushed back to the third quarter of the year. It is another blow considering the huge preparation and the fact that it was announced that it would be closed in front of visits from 15 June to 5 July.

On the bright side, as half of the countries in the Eastern Middle East closed their airspace and now most of the air flights are diverted to Egyptian airports, especially Sharm el-Sheikh.

Economically, the war is already affecting Egypt through disruptions in gas supply. The government hopes to weather the crisis, but I doubt we can avoid losses, further instability, or a new wave of energy and fuel price hikes.