Several online sources on Monday reported that Egypt is building launch sites for ballistic missiles. The images accompanying the reports reveal sites that are dug deep into mountainsides.
מצרים בונה אתרי שיגור לטילים בליסטיים. על פניו מהתמונות, אלו אתרים חפורים עמוק לתוך הרים. מצרים בתהליך רציף ומתמשך של התעצמות צבאית חוצת זרועות. בהינתן אין איום ייחוס מוצהר, לא נותר לנו אלא לפרש את התמרונים הצבאיים אל מול איום ייחוס ממזרח לתעלת סואץ… pic.twitter.com/fjuKoAlawH
— Presamiga (@presamiga) July 22, 2024
The same reports suggested there’s no reason for alarm in Israel, since Egypt has two more immediate targets against which it plans to launch a military attack: Ethiopia, whose new dams control Egypt’s main water source, the Nile; and the Houthis in Yemen whose attacks on international shipping headed for the Red Sea have cost Egypt an estimated 20% of its income from the Suez Canal.
Egypt has been obsessed with ballistic missiles since the 1960s, when it recruited German scientists who reportedly used to work for the Nazi V2 project, to arm itself for the final battle against Israel.
On July 23, 1962, Egypt announced the successful launch of the surface-to-surface missile Al-Kahr. President Gamal Abdel Nasser declared that the new missiles were capable of reaching “south of Beirut,” nudge-nudge, wink-wink. The Mossad responded with Operation Damocles that removed the German scientists in a variety of ways, thwarting the missiles development plan.
The massive Al-Kahr missiles were a regular feature in military parades, mounted on trucks. In the 1967 Six Day War, even though the missile had been operational, supposedly, the Egyptian army did not launch any surface-to-surface missiles at all.
No Germans?
Near the end of the Yom Kippur War, on October 22, 1973, a few hours before the first ceasefire, Egypt announced that Al-Kahr missiles had been launched at the Israeli bridgehead near the Deversoir air base. It turned out that these were three Scud missiles, fired by their Soviet crews without authorization from the Egyptian army. The missiles hit a concentration of Israeli ammunition trucks, killing seven IDF soldiers.
