Minister denies war-crimes allegations

An Israeli Cabinet minister denied Egyptian accusations that he was
involved in the killing of Egyptian prisoners of war. Infrastructure
Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a retired army general, said Sunday that his
record during the 1967 war with Egypt was spotless. His comments came after
some of his former subordinates said in an Israeli documentary that they had
killed Egyptian prisoners, a claim that was picked up by the official Cairo newspaper Al-Ahram and prompted calls in the Egyptian Parliament
for Ben-Eliezer to be tried for war crimes. “The commandos under me did not
kill Egyptian soldiers,” Ben-Eliezer, who is due to visit Egypt later this
week, told Yediot Achronot. “When the commandos encountered POWs from an
Egyptian battalion, they gave them food and water.”