Ras Burqa Massacre

The attack occurred during Sukkot, eight years after Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s 1977 visit to Jerusalem and six years after the 1979 peace treaty. Israeli tourism in Sinai was active, and the group included several Jerusalem academic families.[3][1] Ras Burqa lies on the Red Sea coast of the Sinai Peninsula, between Taba and Nuweiba.[1] Khater had greeted members of the group only minutes before opening fire; the visitors had felt little reason for concern.[1]

On October 5, 1985, the tourists were visiting the Ras Burqa area. The attack took place at a checkpoint where Khater was serving as an Egyptian border guard.[4]

The shooting began at about 4:20 p.m., as Khater raised his gun and fired into a crowd of Israeli tourists.[4] Seven people were killed: adults Haman Shelach, his wife Ilana, and Anita Gripel, along with children Tz Lille Shelach, Ofri Tural, Dina Bari, and Amir Baum.[1][2] The group included 12 people on the dune, while a separate account says Khater killed seven of the eight people he targeted.[5][1]

Gripel shielded her adopted daughter, Tali, with her body and was killed; Tali survived with a minor scratch. One account says she was a month short of her sixth birthday, while another retrospective describes her as four years old.[1][2] After fellow Egyptian soldiers disarmed Khater, they reportedly refused to let rescue forces reach the wounded tourists.[5] An archival account described the victims as having been “left to bleed to death in the Sinai desert.”[6]

Some details of the immediate confrontation come from a later television presentation rather than an independently corroborated reconstruction. Its host, Dina Zakaria, said that 12 Israelis approached the post, that Khater fired warning shots, and that he then shot at them, killing seven and injuring others; those details are reported as her account.[7]

Khater was apprehended, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment, described in one account as life at hard labor in a military prison.[5][8] He was found dead in a military prison hospital on January 7, 1986; Egyptian authorities reported his death as suicide.[5][8] Friends and relatives disputed that account, and reports recounted claims that he feared prison guards might kill him. The available accounts do not establish an alternative cause of death.[5][8]

The killings caused outrage in Israel and strained Egyptian-Israeli relations.[3] In early 1989, Egypt agreed to compensate the victims’ families and issued a formal apology to each family.[5] Delays in emergency assistance and the reported refusal to allow Israeli emergency services to help contributed to the incident’s impact on relations; one account describes it as a turning point after which the peace between the countries became much colder.[5]

Egyptian authorities condemned the attack, promised a full investigation, and prosecuted people they found responsible.[6] The government also sought to prevent Khater from becoming a national hero and damaging the peace treaty, but opposition politicians and journalists praised him, and rallies in his support took place at Egyptian universities.[4] The authorities’ slow response and portrayal of Khater as mentally ill further fueled tensions with Israel.[3] Khater was also celebrated in parts of the Arab world; Iran’s government issued a stamp in his honor and named a street in Tehran after him.[5]

Israeli retrospectives identify seven victims by name, and an archival report likewise says seven tourists were shot.[1][6] A January 27, 1986, item in Near East Report, recounting a Jordanian newspaper editorial, refers instead to six Israelis murdered by a “deranged policeman.”[9] The detailed Israeli accounts identify three adults and four children, so this article uses seven as the established death toll while noting the archival discrepancy.[1][2]

Khater’s public image became politically contested. A 2012 account describes him as a policeman who carried out an isolated attack and reports that Egyptian opposition groups called him a “national hero.”[10] In a 2018 television broadcast, Zakaria portrayed him as a soldier defending Egyptian territory and called him a hero; she alleged that he was killed in prison to please Israel. That allegation contrasts with the official suicide account and is not independently established in the report.[7][8]

At his 1985 trial, Khater reportedly said he feared that his sentence would frighten fellow soldiers and described himself as an Egyptian soldier who had fulfilled his duty; he urged others to protect the Sinai Peninsula.[8] The same report says letters attributed to him complained about Israeli conduct near the border, Israeli attacks in Lebanon, and the Egyptian army’s limited means compared with the Israel Defense Forces. These reported statements do not independently establish his motive.[8]

The dispute over Khater’s death persisted in later reporting. A friend quoted in a 2014 account said Khater had appeared physically and mentally well and relayed his claim that prison security personnel had offered to help him escape, which Khater allegedly feared was a trap. The account conflicts with the reported official finding of suicide but does not establish that he was killed.[8] In 2018, Egyptian officials arrested six people connected to a play about Khater, saying it was viewed as insulting to the security forces; the arrests were under investigation by military prosecutors.[11]