By : Abdel Latif Moubarak
Returning to Suez after the October 1973 war was not simply a homecoming to houses and neighborhoods guarded by memory; rather, it was a return to a pulsating operational theater where the cannons had just fallen silent, leaving behind thousands upon thousands of stories etched on the walls of silence and gunpowder.
When our feet touched the city’s soil, we knew full well that we were not returning to conventional homes, but to strongholds that had weathered the storm of steel. Most of the houses bore the marks of a stray shell or a treacherous missile, and those bare walls were not merely destroyed; they were adorned with scars of honor and dense bullet tracestestaments to the fierceness of the resistance and defense battles fought by the guerrillas and the courageous residents of Suez side by side with our valiant Armed Forces.
In those first moments of return, the scene was both heart-wrenching and soul-stirring with pride. The houses we had left shortly before displacement as peaceful and safe neighborhoods were found transformed into open-air museums of war. On the thresholds, in the forgotten corners, were spine-chilling details: soldiers’ military jackets abandoned here and there, stained with an ancient blood that had dried yet continued to pulse with tales, bearing witness to lives sacrificed to redeem this pure land.
And blood was not the only witness; the bombardments of days past had left a legacy of mortal remains: unexploded shells and grenades crouching in the corners of rooms and beneath the rubble, like ticking time bombs waiting for someone to discover their secrets. But in the world of adults, busy counting losses and rebuilding, our children’s world held a very different view: a universe that transformed certain death into a daring game that only “the boys of Suez” would dare to undertake.
The child of Suez was unlike any other child in any corner of Egypt; war had shaped in him an early awareness, turning our games into an adventure whose boundaries were the sky and danger. We would gather the gunpowder scattered from munitions and pack it with extreme caution inside an old tin shoe-polish box, tying a thin thread to it that served as a fuse.
The adventure would begin when we took cover behind thick walls, applied a flame to the end of the thread, and watched with trepidation and racing hearts as the fire slowly crept until it reached the tin box, turning it in a matter of seconds into a small bomb with a deafening roar that shook the alleys of the destroyed neighborhood. It was not a mere whim, but a way to vent the intensity of astonishment and bewilderment that the war had left in our young souls.
Nor did our games stop at gunpowder; we also collected empty cartridge cases—that cold, yellow brass abandoned by battles—to fashion them into symbolic shapes and figures with the craftsmanship of children who refuse to surrender to death, turning the ashes of war into instruments of joy and expression.
The streets and squares of Suez in those days bore witness to a great epic: the tanks and military vehicles lined up in every corner of the city looked like gigantic mythological statues. Those burnt or disabled tanks, which had tried to storm the city only to be shattered by the arms of its sons, had become for us youngsters playgrounds, spaces for exploration, and seats to climb upon while imagining the heroic deeds of the fedayeen who, with their blood, had written pride and dignity.
We would pass by those steel monuments with the instinctive awareness that we were living on a sacred land, bathed in noble blood and protected by men who had kept their covenant with God.
The experience of displacement and return was not merely a fleeting phase in our life’s journey, but the crucible that shaped our souls, granting us that invisible strength that accompanied us throughout our lives. Suez taught us that life is born from the womb of death, and that the Egyptian will is as hard as the steel of its wounded tanks.
In memory of these heroic deeds, in every corner of this proud city, we stand today in profound respect and gratitude.
My most sincere tributes to every martyr who sacrificed his pure blood in the battle of the great victory, and a reverent salute to every guerrilla who defended Suez bare-chested, with rudimentary weapons and unwavering resolve.
Glory to Suez, and glory to its children who grew up on the edge of death to forge life.
