Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 28.07.2025
According to a report by Middle East Eye on the night of 25 July 2025, a group of young Egyptians calling themselves “Iron 17,” stormed the State Security headquarters at the Ma’asara police station in Helwan, detaining several security personnel for hours in an unprecedented act, the first of its kind since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s military coup.
The raid, captured in viral videos, exposed mounting public fury that could threaten Sisi’s grip on power. Much of this anger stems from Egypt’s role in the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the closure of the Rafah crossing.
Since Israel seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in May 2024, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis has worsened, with dozens, mainly children, dying of starvation according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The Egyptian masses feel outrage over Al Sisi’s capitulation to Israeli and US pressures at the expense of the Palestinians. Adding fuel to the fire, North Sinai Governor Khaled Megawer, in a Friday interview with pro-regime journalist Mustafa Bakri, admitted Egypt cannot forcibly reopen Rafah due to US opposition, a statement critics view as an implicit admission of Cairo’s role in the closure.
The videos, viewed millions of times, showed the group condemning the closure of the Rafah crossing, a lifeline for Gaza’s besieged population, and the arrests of activists collecting aid for the enclave. In one chilling exchange, a detained officer responded to demands to reopen Rafah with a single word: “Impossible.” These clips are not just documentation; they stand as a testament to a people fed up with a regime they accuse of complicity in Gaza’s suffering.
The leaked documents exposed the names of current detainees and forcibly disappeared individuals linked to charges like protesting or alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. They included security classifications, labelling people as Brotherhood members, Salafists, or sympathizers.
The Fact Checker, an independent fact-checking initiative, in a detailed analysis on its official Facebook page, confirmed the authenticity of some names, including Fathi Rajab Hassan Ahmed and Ahmed Nadi Haddad Darwish, both tied to the “Helwan Brigades” case, and Abdel Rahman Ramadan Mohamed Abdel Shafi, previously listed as forcibly disappeared in a 2024 report by the Shahab Center for Human Rights.
As could be expected, Egypt’s Interior Ministry quickly issued a statement denying the videos’ authenticity, claiming they were fabricated as part of a Muslim Brotherhood-led conspiracy.
This knee-jerk denial, a familiar tactic, failed to mask the ministry’s embarrassment and fueled criticism that the regime is trapped in denial, dismissing legitimate grievances as foreign plots.
A subsequent video from “Nation’s Flood” showed one of the young men, bloodied and with torn clothes, insisting they were not terrorists and had used an empty sound pistol, aiming only to send a message.
Still, communication with the group abruptly ceased, and all prior messages on the Telegram channel vanished, raising questions about whether security forces had seized control of the channel or its administrators had deleted the content.
The group was able to release a statement. The statement, attributed to Ahmed Abdel Wahab and Mohsen Mustafa, rejected any political affiliations, describing themselves as “heirs of Omar ibn al-Khattab and Amr ibn al-Aas” seeking to revive Egypt’s national spirit. These individuals were early Islamic military and political leaders who embodied strength, justice, and national revival.
This group is inspiring, and hopefully, it will be the spark of a new round of the Arab revolution. The key to winning the struggle against the Tyranny of Al Sisi is the building of a revolutionary leadership of the working class. We are not going to forget the betrayal of the Egyptian Stalinist party that supported the military coup as the supposed way for deeper democracy. Nor do we forget the miserable role of the “Revolutionary Socialists” who zig-zag all over the Map.
Long Live the Arab Revolution!