On that day.. the leaders and officers of Egyptian intelligence prayed the funeral prayer.. over an Israeli...
An Israeli soldier...!
The story begins under the cover of night.. and after the October crossing.
An Egyptian helicopter crosses the Canal.. carrying a group of the elite men of Egyptian intelligence.
And this helicopter had only one objective.
To search for the body of a soldier.
An Israeli...!
And in the darkness of the night in Sinai.. they lift the rubble and leap amid the wreckage of the Bar Lev line.. and its fires that are still burning.
And they search with feverish intensity.
With the utmost care.
And in the end they find him.
An Israeli soldier in his uniform and military rank.. whose soul has departed to its Creator.
And the men of Egyptian intelligence salute the Israeli soldier.. and carry him with the utmost respect.. and return to the helicopter.. and set off back to Cairo.
And there.. the soldier was shrouded in his Israeli military uniform as a martyr.
And wrapped in the flag of Egypt.
And buried.. after the funeral prayer we pray as Muslims was said over him.
His name was "Moshe".
"Moshe Zaki Rafi".
And the story of "Moshe" begins when Egyptian intelligence.. considers recruiting young spies.. and sending them into Israel.. during the War of Attrition.
And at the same time, in Egypt, a young Jew with no family, named "Moshe Zaki", dies of pulmonary tuberculosis.
And since it had a census of every Jew in Egypt.. Egyptian intelligence seizes the opportunity.. and begins to suppress news of his death.. and tries to bring him back to life.
Nobody knows exactly what they did.. did they search the records for someone suitable, like Rafaat al-Haggan? Some accounts said he was a conscript in the Egyptian army.. and accounts said he was a student at the Military College.. and others said he was an intelligence man to begin with.
But the truth was never announced, or was lost among speculation and imagination.
But they found a patriotic young Egyptian with the same physical measurements as "Moshe"...
And they gave him his name.
And they recruited him.
And the young man carried the new name.
"Moshe Zaki Rafi".
And "Moshe" began his training in the unknown area that some refer to as Zone "G3".
And this is an entire city in Egypt.. nobody knows where it is.. above ground or beneath it.
But it is a carbon copy of another city.
Of Tel Aviv.
Even the street signs and the car number plates.
Even the food packaging and the wristwatches and wall clocks.
Israeli and in the Hebrew language.
And all the inhabitants of "Zone G3" speak nothing but Hebrew.. even if they hum a song while showering. And they trade and sell to one another and buy in Hebrew and in shekels.
Even in their sleep.. they dream in Hebrew.
And the Egyptian "Moshe" passes the G3 training.. including the harshest and most ferocious of it.. and it includes intelligence men swooping down on him during deep sleep.. and waking him abruptly.. and asking him his name.
And he must say his name in Hebrew.. "Moshe Zaki Rafi".
And "Moshe" succeeds.
And like "Rafaat al-Haggan", they begin a plan on paper.. showing his persecution in Egypt.
And he leaves his family and his fiancée.. and tells them he has been offered a work contract abroad.
And this will be the last time.. they ever see him.
And he flees to Malaysia.. and from there to Greece.. and seeks to emigrate to Israel.
And like "al-Haggan" as well.. after harassment and investigations.. the Israelis allow him to emigrate to the new promised homeland.. in 1969.
And there.. since he is an Eastern Jew.. they put him in menial jobs.. until instructions reach him to get close to a beautiful librarian.. in Tel Aviv.
And "Moshe" exploits his good looks.. and gets close to the librarian.. and enters into a very intimate relationship with her.. as a result of which he moves and lives in her house.
And "Moshe" lives with the librarian and drowns her in his love.. until he presses her.. to find him a job at the library.
And the truth is that this was the planning of Egyptian intelligence. Because another lady used to frequent the library.
And they ask him to get close to this lady.. and make her fall in love with him.
And this lady was a personal friend of senior men of state.. including "Shimon Peres".. and "Moshe Dayan" and others.
A lady who held a vital post.
A member of the Knesset.
"Senetta Yoseftal".
And "Moshe" moves in to live with "Senetta" and makes excuses to his first lover that he is staying with friends in a nearby place.
But Egyptian intelligence leaks news of his relationship with Senetta.. to his first lover..!!
And his lover the librarian monitors him.. and sees him with "Senetta" in public places.. and entering her house.. and not coming out until the following morning.
And in her fury.. she throws him out of the library.. and reports to the Israeli authorities a secret he had told her.
That he was evading conscription.
And the military police arrest "Moshe".
And he is imprisoned.
But his lover "Senetta" intervenes with her strong influence.. and has them release him immediately.
And when "Dayan" tells her that his case came through an official report and his fitness and his evasion were recorded in the papers.. and it is no longer possible to exempt him from conscription.. she asks him to put him in a comfortable posting.. close to her.
And indeed he is enlisted in a unit that monitors correspondence.. next to the house of his lover "Senetta".
And he used to spend the night in her arms in her house on a special arrangement.. not in his unit like the rest of the soldiers.
And this unit monitors all the letters to and from the officers and soldiers on the front.
And in it they tell their families.
They tell them a great deal.
And from "Moshe" flows a stream of dazzling information.. which he transmits with the utmost precision.. to Egyptian intelligence.
And zero hour approaches.
The hour of the crossing.
It approaches.
And suddenly new instructions reach "Moshe" from Egyptian intelligence.
And strange ones.
That he should enrage his lover "Senetta" and provoke her anger to the greatest possible degree.. at any price..!!
And since an intelligence agent anywhere in the world.. does not discuss instructions or improvise.. however strange they may be.. "Moshe" carries out the order.
And "Senetta" returns one night from a session in the Knesset.. and is surprised to find him in her house and on her bed with a woman of the night.. whom he brought in from the street.
And "Senetta" erupts in tremendous fury.. and throws him out.
But she does not stop there.
She calls, grief-stricken and choked with rage, her friend "Dayan".. and demands that "Moshe" be transferred to the line of fire.. to the front ranks.. and the confrontation line if a war breaks out.
The Bar Lev line.
And "Moshe" is indeed transferred there.
And that was all Egyptian intelligence wanted.
To the letter.
And from there valuable, precious information reaches them from him.. until the hour of the crossing.
6 October.. 1973.
And as he was trained.. "Moshe" disables many of the wireless communication lines.. between the Israeli forward lines.. and their commands.
And in the thick of the bombardment and the fighting, intense fervour takes hold of him.. to the point that he ignores the code he was trained in.. and the secret communication frequencies.. and begins broadcasting his messages directly to Cairo.. and shouts and chants at the top of his lungs in the Arabic language.. over the wireless.
And because his mission had effectively ended.. and he had sent the locations and positions of ammunition depots and bunkers and vital fortifications to Egyptian intelligence.. they ask him to determine his position.. so when he determines it.. they ask him to leave it at once.. and surrender himself to the nearest Egyptian soldiers.
But "Moshe" this time.. refuses the order.
He was determined to serve his country to the end.
And Egyptian intelligence contacts the Ministry of Defence and asks them not to bombard "Moshe's" position.. or kill any Israeli soldier in it.. whatever the price.. and to take them alive.
But the Ministry.. because of the circumstances of the bombardment and the war.. is unable to contact the nearest unit to the intended position.
And when "Moshe's" wireless unit is bombarded by Egyptian aircraft.. he comes out of his hiding place wounded.. and heads to the ammunition depot positions.. and begins waving his hands at the Egyptian fighter jets.. and pointing with his arms at the vital concealed targets.. so that they bomb them.
And...
And we return to the strange scene with which our story began.
"Moshe", who sacrificed his life for Egypt.. and Egyptian intelligence recovers his body.
And shrouds him in his military uniform, soaked in his pure blood.
And wraps him in the flag of Egypt.
And buries him in its soil after a solemn funeral.
And his file is closed, the one that carried his code number in Egyptian intelligence...
Agent 1001.
And beneath it his name adorns the file.
His real name.
"Amr Talaat".
I could not find a photograph of the hero "Amr Talaat" whose authenticity I could verify.
The Egyptian hero.. who was shrouded in an... Israeli military uniform.