Three Arab terrorists, who had crossed into Israel from Lebanon, were killed early yesterday in a fierce battle with Israeli troops. Two Israeli soldiers were injured. One of the soldiers was injured when the terrorists attacked an Israeli patrol near Hanitah Friday night.
A large force began a combing operation throughout the night with civilian defense guards and border police put on increased alert. As dawn broke the three terrorists were spotted behind a rock in a densely overgrown area. The terrorists used hand grenades and their weapons in a five-minute fight in which the second Israeli soldier was injured.
The terrorists, members of George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were wearing French-made camouflaged uniforms and European-made boots. They all had Kalachnikof rifles, hand grenades, barbed wire cutters, pamphlets in Arabic, food, and Lebanese money.
This was the seventh attempt in the last three months by Arab terrorists crossing into Israel on sabotage missions. These attempts have resulted in 18 terrorists killed and two captured. Two Israeli soldiers were killed and eight injured. Many of the soldiers who have fought the terrorists are Druze.
This morning a police sapper dismantled a home-made bomb before it could do damage at the Jaffa Gate entrance to Jerusalem’s old city. Police and security men later made arrests in the area. The bomb–an explosive charge in a metal pipe connected to a timing device–was discovered by passersby who called the police sappers, While the sappers worked, other policemen removed pedestrians and shopkeepers from the area.
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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.
