An uneasy calm prevailed today on Israel’s northern border with Syria after nearly two weeks of almost daily shooting incidents in which the Syrians twice used tanks this week.
Lt. Gen. Odd Bull, chief of staff of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, returned today from an urgent visit to Damascus to seek assurances from Syrian officials on steps to reduce the border tension. Gen. Bull conferred with Syrian Chief of Staff Ahmad Sweidani and other Syrian military commanders. He will report tomorrow to the Israeli Foreign Ministry on his talks with the Syrians.
Israeli sources expressed hope that Gen. Bull was bringing a favorable report on the prospects of Syrian cooperation for maintaining border peace. At the same time they feared that shooting might break out again at any moment in what was viewed here as “an escalation in bloodshed and terror.”
(At the United Nations, Israel presented last night another protest to the Security Council over Syrian shooting on the border. This was the third protest within a week. While not requesting any action by the Security Council, the Israeli protest pointed out that increasing use of heavy weapons by Syria had aggravated the situation on the Israeli-Syrian frontier, Israel charged that in an attack yesterday, Syrian forces have used 120-mm. mortars which fire shells of about five-inch caliber.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
