During the
War of Attrition, in March 1969, then-President
Gamal Abdel Nasser appointed el-Gamasy as commander of the
Second Field Army. His appointment was part of a process of rooting out former general commander
Abdel Hakim Amer's mostly incompetent loyalists with capable commanders, including
Abdul Munim Riad,
Saad el-Shazly and
Ahmed Ismail. El-Gamasy later wrote that Nasser should have deconstructed Amer's autonomous web of control in the armed forces following the Egyptian military failure during the
Suez Crisis in 1956. El-Gamasy was well known for being the Chief of Operations for all Ground Forces participating in the 1973
October War. He was also appointed by
Anwar Sadat as the head of the group that participated in the disengagement talks on 28 October, at "Kilometer 101". Reportedly, he was sad for the lost souls at the war when the American secretary of state
Henry Kissinger announced that the president Sadat agreed to pull the main part of the Egyptian forces from the east side of the Suez Canal in exchange of the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the west side of the Suez Canal and retreat back into the depth of Sinai. ==Death==