Exclusive: ‘History has proved my father was right,’ late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s son tells Arab News

01|El-Sadat denounce the myth of Israel winning October war
0 seconds of 3 minutes, 7 secondsVolume 90%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
Next Up
02| El-Sadat on the relationship between his father and the Shah of Iran
03:06
00:00
03:07
03:07
 
Short Url
Updated 06 October 2021
Follow

Exclusive: ‘History has proved my father was right,’ late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s son tells Arab News

  • Gamal El-Sadat discusses his father’s life and legacy in wide-ranging interview on the 40th anniversary of his assassination
  • He provides rare insight into the rationale behind Anwar Sadat’s decision to go to war and later pursue peace with Israel

CAIRO: On Oct. 6, 1981, Islamist extremists gunned down Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as he reviewed troops at a military parade in Cairo to celebrate the country’s 1973 war against Israel. Sadat’s bullet-riddled body was rushed to the Maadi Military Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:40 p.m. due to “intense nervous shock and internal bleeding in the chest cavity.”

Two years earlier, Sadat had become the first Arab leader to make peace with Israel — a decision that angered many Egyptians and led to violent demonstrations against him. But the assassination of Sadat did not derail the peace process, which continued without him, with Egypt formally establishing diplomatic relations with Israel in 1982.

In an exclusive interview ahead of the 40th anniversary of the assassination, Gamal El-Sadat, son of Anwar Sadat and chairman of Etisalat Misr, spoke with Arab News about his father’s political legacy, the values he learned from his father, and his memory of that fateful day.

“I was traveling in the US at that time with a couple of my friends,” Gamal El-Sadat said, referring to his location on Oct. 6, 1981. “I had just arrived in Florida. It was a fishing trip that never happened. It was the only time that I had missed the parade.”

Back in Cairo, a group of officers wearing army uniforms and led by Khaled Al-Islambouli, a lieutenant in the Egyptian army, stopped in front of the parade’s reviewing stand. They then fired shots and threw grenades into a crowd of Egyptian government officials.

Anwar Sadat, who was shot four times, died two hours later as 10 other people were also killed in the attack.




Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shown in a photo taken February 11, 1981 during a private visit to Paris. (AFP/File Photo)

“In the morning, I woke up to a call from the resort manager telling me that there was a shooting in the parade and my father was hurt,” Gamal El-Sadat said. 

“I tried to call Cairo, with no luck, then turned the news on. The bulletin said that Anwar Sadat was hurt in his arm, but he was in stable condition. I kept trying to call Cairo until I reached my mother (Jehan Sadat) who told me directly ‘your father has passed away.’”

Jehan Sadat was sitting in the stands at the military parade, just a few meters away from her husband when the deadly attack unfolded.

Gamal El-Sadat remembers very clearly the events that took place immediately after his return to Cairo. His father’s autopsy had not been conducted yet. There was a theory at the time that Anwar Sadat’s murder might have been an inside job.

Gamal El-Sadat recalled arriving directly at the Sadat family home but something cropped up. “I received a call from the prime minister at the time, Dr. Fouad Mohideen, who told me that ‘we would like to have an autopsy done because there is a bullet that is lodged somewhere. We just need to verify because there is a theory that some of my father’s own bodyguards might have assassinated him.’”

Gamal El-Sadat said he would like to be present for the autopsy. 

“The autopsy concluded that when the shooting started, my father stood up and he took bullets in his arm and thigh. Those were not fatal,” he said.

“However, another bullet from an AK-74 assault rifle that was fired from one of the parade’s trucks had ricocheted off the counter in front of my father, took an upward trajectory to enter his chest. The bullet went through his heart and got stuck in his neck.

“This finding laid to rest all suspicions about my father’s murder being an inside job. Members of his security detail used to carry sidearms only.”

Less than two years before his killing, in an unprecedented move for an Arab leader, Anwar Sadat traveled to seek a permanent peace settlement with Israel after decades of conflict.

Sadat’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and address to Israel's parliament were met with outrage in most of the Arab world. The global reaction was different: Sadat and Begin were jointly awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize for peace.

Gamal El-Sadat said: “Before going to Jerusalem, my father went to Syria when he met President (Hafez) Assad to invite the Syrian leader to join him. President Assad was a dear friend of my father but he said ‘No, I will not come with you.’ So, my father told him, ‘Please, I ask you to give me your permission to speak on your behalf. If I fail, it will be me who failed. If I succeed, then we will both succeed.’ But Assad told him ‘No, I will not give you permission to do that as well.’ So, my father left and was very unhappy because it was an offer that had no downsides for Syria at the time.”

Gamal El-Sadat continued: “My father believed that the military had finished its role; there was no way we were going to go any further with the military. It had to be political. It had to be diplomacy. …  He had no other choice. (He could not be) the man who looked out for his own fame and kept saying ‘I will throw (the Israelis) into the sea’ and got the support of all the countries, yet not do anything in the end, because nobody was going to throw (the Israelis) into the sea because their safety was guaranteed by the US and the Soviet Union.”

Despite criticism from Egypt’s regional allies, Sadat continued to pursue peace with Begin, and in September 1978 the two leaders met again in the US, where they negotiated an agreement with President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, Maryland.

The Camp David Accords, the first peace agreement between the state of Israel and one of its Arab neighbors, laid the groundwork for diplomatic and commercial relations.

The peace efforts were greeted with suspicion and hostility across the Arab world. In addition to being subjected to political, economic, and diplomatic sanctions, Egypt was also suspended from the Arab League and the body’s headquarters was temporarily moved from Cairo to the Tunisian capital, Tunis.

Today, besides Egypt, five other Arab countries — Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco — have established full diplomatic relations with Israel.




Sadat was portrayed as "The Hero of the Crossing" following the 1973 war with Israel, which gave him a huge bump in status and popularity. (Getty Images)

“When my father came to office as president after Gamal Abdel Nasser, he made several proposals for peace with Israel, but they were never met with any seriousness,” Gamal El-Sadat said. 

“They were completely disregarded, and he came to understand that the world only listens to power. It was the October war that demonstrated that Egypt would not keep silent regarding Israel’s occupation of its territory.”

Gamal El-Sadat rejects the notion, however, that Egypt did not emerge victorious in the 1973 war. 

“The Israelis crossed over to the western side of the Suez Canal, yes,” he said. “They tried to take Suez but could not take Suez, which was a civilian city. And they could not go any further west. The Egyptian reserves blocked the west.”

Gamal El-Sadat continued: “My father understood the (necessity of the) peace deal earlier. He knew that wars were not going to solve the issue. He wanted other Arab countries to join Egypt in the Camp David Accord, and history has shown his vision to be right. Now Arab countries have begun to build strong relations with Israel as they have started to understand that the only solution is politics and dialogue.”

Gamal El-Sadat cited the generosity shown by Anwar Sadat to the dying shah of Iran as proof of the principles his father lived by. Their friendship dated back to the 1970s when Mohamed Reza Pahlavi stood by Egypt during the 1973 war with Israel and sent medical aid and doctors.




The coffin of late Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat is transported on a gun carriage during his funeral 10 October 1981 in Cairo. (AFP/File Photo)

After being overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the ailing shah moved between Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico, the US, and Panama. He then took refuge in Egypt on March 24, 1980, after being received by President Sadat.

Gamal El-Sadat said: “My father did not want to make an enemy of anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings. But he could not deny (the fact) that this man stood by Egypt — not by my father, but by Egypt in its time of need.”

For Gamal El-Sadat, Anwar Sadat was of course not just a president of Egypt whose place in history is recognized and secure. He also remembers his father as a kind and simple person.

“I am biased because I am his son, but I believe this statement is true,” Gamal El-Sadat said. “Anwar Sadat was a man in touch with reality. He had lived a hard life and understood what it was to be poor. He appreciated life and understood that life has so many aspects other than money and politics.”

Indeed, Anwar Sadat’s personal history simply reflected the tortuous history of Egypt itself in the 20th century. He was born into a peasant family in the Nile Delta. He joined the Egyptian army, took the side of the Axis powers during World War II, and participated in activism against the British, who imprisoned him.

Anwar Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of Nasser, under whom he served as vice president twice and whom he eventually succeeded as president in 1970.

“My father was a religious person and very humble,” Gamal El-Sadat told Arab News. “He taught me and my siblings to love our country, and always respect people regardless of their position or station. He used to pray with poor people to show me that we are all alike.”

Until her death from cancer at the age of 88 in July, Jehan Sadat spent much of her life dedicated to promoting social justice and female empowerment in Egypt. Long before she became a global public figure, Jehan helped lead a campaign to reform Egypt’s status law which would go on to grant women new rights to divorce their husbands and retain custody of their children.

She was frequently photographed alongside her husband on official visits abroad and in more intimate settings, at home with their family.

Jehan Sadat would go on to earn a master’s and doctorate degree in comparative literature and, in her later years, took on lecturing posts in Cairo and the US.

“Jehan Sadat was a public figure during Sadat’s time and afterward,” Gamal El-Sadat said. “She was really a strong lady. After my father passed away, she would not sit back and stay at home. She continued her career and got a Ph.D. in Arabic literature, traveled to the US, and started teaching as a visiting professor.

“She used to promote women’s rights in our part of the world. She kept doing so until very recent years when she decided to spend more time with her family.”

Jehan Sadat was just 46 when Anwar Sadat was assassinated. She spent the rest of her life trying to preserve his legacy of peace through her travels and lectures around the world.


UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

Updated 30 June 2025
Follow

UAE and Jordan condemn terror attack on Pakistani military convoy that killed 13 soldiers

  • A further 24 people were injured, 14 of them civilians, when a car bomb exploded near a bomb-disposal vehicle in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday
  • Emirati Foreign Ministry sends condolences to families of the victims and the people of Pakistan following the ‘cowardly attack’

LONDON: Authorities in the UAE and Jordan have strongly condemned a terrorist attack on a military convoy in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in which 13 soldiers were killed and at least 24 people were injured.

The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent its condolences to the families of the victims, and all the people of Pakistan, following the “heinous and cowardly attack,” along its best wishes for a speedy recovery of those who were injured.

It added that the UAE firmly rejects all forms of terrorism and violence that undermine security and stability.

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry similarly condemned the attack and expressed its solidarity with Pakistan during this terrible time.

A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the military convoy on Saturday and it detonated near a bomb disposal vehicle. Of the 24 people who were injured, 14 are civilians.

Armed group Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. It was one of the deadliest, single-day incidents in recent months targeting security forces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.


Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

Updated 30 June 2025
Follow

Qatari emir, Spanish king meet on sidelines of UN investment conference in Seville

  • King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments with Qatar
  • He reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week

LONDON: Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, met King Felipe VI of Spain in Seville on the sidelines of a UN-organized international investment conference.

The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development began on Monday and will continue until July 3, bringing together global leaders to discuss urgent reforms necessary for financing sustainable development.

King Felipe expressed his desire to strengthen relations and support joint investments through small and medium-sized enterprises following the recent economic agreements between Qatar and Spain.

He also reiterated Spain’s solidarity with Qatar and condemned the Iranian attack on Al-Udeid Air Base last week, praising Doha’s role in facilitating a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel.

Sheikh Tamim emphasized Qatar’s commitment to enhancing cooperation with Spain across cultural, educational and security fields to serve the common interests of both countries, the Qatar News Agency reported.


Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

Updated 30 June 2025
Follow

Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

  • The Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move ‘provocative and humiliating’

LONDON: Israeli authorities permitted a wedding engagement ceremony for Jewish settlers within the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem on Monday.

The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move “provocative and humiliating,” describing it as a transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque into what resembles a public hall for celebrations by extremist settlers.

“(This is) a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the mosque, a serious provocation of the feelings of Muslims, and a deliberate attempt to impose a new reality that erases the Islamic identity of the site and paves the way for its division temporally and spatially,” the Jerusalem Governorate said.

On Monday, settlers, accompanied by Israeli police, toured the Al-Aqsa compound. Police prevented Palestinians from approaching the settlers to disrupt the ceremony, according to the Wafa news agency.

The Jerusalem Governorate said that Israeli policies aim to impose sovereignty on Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing that these repeated provocations contradict international law and the 2016 UNESCO resolution, which recognized Al-Aqsa Mosque as an Islamic heritage site and called for its preservation.

Since 1967, the Jerusalem Endowments Council, which operates under Jordan’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, has been the legal authority responsible for managing and regulating the affairs of Al-Aqsa.

However, this status quo has been challenged in recent years by extremist settlers who regularly tour the site under the protection of Israeli police and are often accompanied by government officials and far-right ministers and activists.


UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

Updated 30 June 2025
Follow

UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

  • Letter to PM: ‘The same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families’
  • Death toll ‘likely to be exponentially higher’ than official figure due to collapse of local govt, health systems

LONDON: MPs in the UK are calling on the government to launch a visa system for Palestinians in Gaza with family already living in Britain.

Sixty-seven politicians have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asking for a Gaza Family Scheme mirroring the Ukraine Family Scheme established in 2022 to help refugees escape the war with Russia. It allowed Ukrainians to live and work in the UK for up to three years.

“We believe that the same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families,” said the letter, seen by Sky News.

Signatories include 35 Labour MPs and members of the House of Lords, as well as several people currently suspended from the governing party, including its former leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. 

All four sitting members of the Green Party have also signed, alongside former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and the Bishop of Chelmsford Dr. Guli Francis-Dehquani.

The letter accuses Israel of “shattering the temporary ceasefire agreement” with Hamas in Gaza, and of conducting a “campaign of bombardment and military assaults, and targeting of people accessing humanitarian aid.”

MP Marsha de Cordova, who helped organize the letter alongside the Gaza Families Reunited campaign, told Sky News that the Ukraine visa scheme “was the right response to a brutal war,” and that establishing one for Gazans “would be an extension of those same principles, showing that this government is steadfast in its commitment to helping families experiencing the worst horrors of war.

“It is time for the government to act now to help British Palestinians get their loved ones to safety, enabling them to rebuild their lives.”

The letter said the proposed scheme would let Palestinians reunite with “people they may never see again unless urgent action is taken,” and many Gazans trying to reach the UK “struggled to navigate the immigration system.”

It added that efforts to secure visas have been made “impossible due to the destruction of the visa application centre in Gaza and blockade of the Rafah crossing.”

The letter said the death toll in Gaza, reported by Palestinian authorities as numbering at least 53,000 people, “is likely to be exponentially higher” due to the collapse of local government and health systems in the enclave.

Ghassan Ghaben, spokesperson for Gaza Families Reunited, told Sky News: “Family unity is an undeniable human right.”

He urged more MPs, including Conservatives, to add their names to efforts to help get Palestinians to the UK, saying: “We are still waiting for the new government to do the right thing. We, as Palestinians in the UK, simply want the opportunity to bring our loved ones from Gaza to safety, until it is safe to return.”

A government spokesperson told Sky News: “The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable. Since day one, we have been clear that we need to see an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages cruelly detained by Hamas, better protection of civilians, significantly more aid consistently entering Gaza, and a path to long-term peace and stability.

“There are a range of routes available for Palestinians who wish to join family members in the UK.”


Israel strikes pound Gaza, killing 60, ahead of US talks on ceasefire

Updated 30 June 2025
Follow

Israel strikes pound Gaza, killing 60, ahead of US talks on ceasefire

  • Israel’s Dermer due in US for talks on Gaza, Iran, wider deals
  • Israeli tanks push into Gaza City suburb, residents say

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Israeli strikes killed at least 60 people across Gaza on Monday in some of the heaviest attacks in weeks as Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by US President Donald Trump.
A day after Trump called to “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,” Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s, was traveling to Washington for talks on Iran and Gaza, according to an Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter.
Dermer was expected to begin meetings with Trump administration officials on Tuesday, the source in Washington said.
But on the ground in the Palestinian enclave, there was no sign of fighting letting up. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Monday to residents in large districts in the northern Gaza Strip, forcing a new wave of displacement.
“Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,” said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City. “In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions.”
“Look at us, we are not just numbers and not just pictures. Every day martyrs like this,” said displaced woman Amani Swalha, standing in the rubble of a Gaza city school hit in a strike. “It is our right to live, and to live with dignity, not like this in humiliation.”
Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.
At least 58 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, health authorities said, including 10 people killed in Zeitoun and at least 13 killed southwest of Gaza City. Medics said most of the 13 were hit by gunfire, but residents also reported an airstrike.
Twenty-two people, including women, children and a local journalist were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a beachfront cafe in Gaza City, medics said. The Palestinian Journalist Syndicate said more than 220 journalists had been killed in Gaza since the war began in October 2023.
The Israeli military said it struck militant targets in northern Gaza, including command and control centers, after taking steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.
There was no immediate word from Israel on the reported casualties southwest of the Gaza Strip and the beachfront cafe.
The bombardment followed new evacuation orders to vast areas in the north, where Israeli forces had operated before and left behind wide-scale destruction. The military ordered people there to head south, saying that it planned to fight Hamas militants operating in northern Gaza, including in the heart of Gaza City.
“Make the deal”
Alongside talks on Gaza ceasefire prospects, Dermer also plans to discuss Netanyahu’s possible visit to the White House in coming weeks, according to the source familiar with the matter.
In Israel, Netanyahu’s security cabinet was expected to convene to discuss the next steps in Gaza.
On Friday, Israel’s military chief said the present ground operation was close to having achieved its goals, and on Sunday, Netanyahu said new opportunities had opened up for recovering the hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two warring sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.
A Hamas official said that progress depends on Israel changing its position and agreeing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. Israel says it can end the war only when Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel has agreed to a US-proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage deal, and put the onus on Hamas. He told reporters: “Israel is serious in its will to reach a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, speaking in Jerusalem alongside her Israeli counterpart, said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “unbearable.”
“The suffering of civilians is increasingly burdening Israel’s relations with Europe. A ceasefire must be agreed upon,” she said, calling for the unconditional release of hostages by Hamas and for Israel to allow the uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel says it continues to allow aid into Gaza and accuses Hamas of stealing it. The group denies that accusation and says Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the Gaza population.
The US has proposed a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of other Palestinians. Hamas would release the remaining hostages as part of a deal that guarantees ending the war.
The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel’s single deadliest day.
Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
More than 80 percent of the territory is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under displacement orders, according to the UN.