Egypt denied the Wall Street Journal report attributing responsibility for the Damietta port explosion to Iran

Zia Rashwan, Egypt's Information Minister, denied a Wall Street Journal report that had cited anonymous sources in attributing responsibility for the explosion at Damietta port to Iran. He set out the position in a telephone interview with an Arab satellite channel, and the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram published it on Friday, 31 July 2026. Rashwan stressed that "there is no anonymous source in Egypt" and that information is released only through official channels.

According to him, the Egyptian government is handling the incident with the utmost seriousness, adhering to transparency and respecting the investigative process, and responsibility will be determined only after official investigations are complete and their final results announced. On remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi that his country was not involved in the incident, Rashwan said the statement "deserves examination and reflection", adding that Egypt's official position will rest "exclusively" on the findings of investigations by the competent authorities in line with legal procedures.

Egypt's oil ministry had earlier confirmed in a statement that a fire had occurred on a regasification vessel and a storage vessel berthed at Damietta port. Damietta is one of Egypt's key gas terminals, and any disruption there bears on the country's energy supply and on the regional LNG market, adding, alongside the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, to the risk premium in world energy prices.