Einsatzgruppe Egypt was a special mobile SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

 death squad

Death squad

A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extrajudicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign...

, which was to carry out a mass killing of Jews in British mandate of Palestine similar to the way they operated in eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

. "Einsatzgruppe Egypt" was standing by in Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

 and was ready to disembark for Palestine in the summer of 1942, attached to the "Afrika Korps

Afrika Korps

The German Africa Corps , or the Afrika Korps as it was popularly called, was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...

" led by the famed desert commander General Erwin Rommel

Erwin Rommel

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel , popularly known as the Desert Fox , was a German Field Marshal of World War II. He won the respect of both his own troops and the enemies he fought....

. The Middle East death squad, similar to those operating throughout eastern Europe during the war, was to be led by SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Walther Rauff

Walter Rauff

Walter Rauff , was an SS officer in Nazi Germany, attaining the grade of Colonel in June 1944...

. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3237529,00.html. In 2006 historians Klaus-Michael Mallman and Martin Cüppers published Halbmond und Hakenkreuz: Das dritte Reich, die Araber und Palästina [Crescent moon and swastika: The Third Reich, the Arabs, and Palestine] (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft); the book is a study of Einsatzgruppe Egypt and Nazi plans for mass annihilation of Jews in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

 with the support of the Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had been Grand Mufti

Grand Mufti

The title of Grand Mufti refers to the highest official of religious law in a Sunni or Ibadi Muslim country. The Grand Mufti issues legal opinions and edicts, fatwā, on interpretations of Islamic law for private clients or to assist judges in deciding cases...

 of Jerusalem from 1922 to 1937 and who continued to hold considerable influence in the region.