Israel and Egypt have agreed to investigate reports of at least 20 Egyptian soldiers who were said to be burnt alive by the Israeli army during the 1967 war, according to local media.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has said his office would investigate a mass grave in central Israel containing the bodies of Egyptian commandos.
The issue, Lapid’s office said on Sunday, was brought by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in a call after two Israeli newspapers published witness accounts suggesting there was an unmarked grave near Latrun, an area between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Lapid ordered his military secretary “to examine the issue in depth and to update Egyptian officials,” according to his office.
Separately, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement that the contact between the two sides included “a consensus for the Israeli authorities to conduct a full and transparent investigation into the news reported in the Israeli press in connection with historical facts that occurred in the 1967 war about the Egyptian soldiers buried in Jerusalem.”
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry earlier on Sunday said that it had assigned its embassy in Tel Aviv to demand that Israel open an investigation to clarify historical facts raised in the media about the 1967 war.
A prominent Israeli journalist specializing in security affairs last week revealed that at least 20 Egyptian soldiers were burnt alive by the Israeli army.
In a series of tweets, journalist Yossi Melman recently wrote: "After 55 years of heavy censorship, I can reveal that at least 20 Egyptian soldiers were burnt alive and buried by IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) in a mass grave, which wasn't marked and without being identified contrary to war laws, in Latrun. It happened during the Six-Day War.”
The website of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth published similar details narrated by Melman.
"Egypt deployed 2 commando battalions in the West Bank near Latrun, which was no man's land. Their mission was to raid inside Israel and take over Lod and a nearby military airfield,” Melman said.
Latrun is located on the road between Jerusalem and Jaffa, about 25 kilometers (some 16 miles) west of Jerusalem. After the 1948 war, an agreement was reached between Israel and Jordan to make it a no-man’s land.
In the 1967 war, Israel occupied and annexed Latrun, which is today a suburb of West Jerusalem. The IDF defeated the Arab armies and occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (which was under Jordanian control), the Gaza Strip (which was under Egyptian control), the Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights.
