Lt. Gen. Odd Bull, Secretary-General U Thant’s personal representative, blamed the continuing flare ups along the Suez Canal on the reluctance of both Israelis and Egyptians to make full use of the United Nations cease-fire observation machinery.
Gen. Bull cabled U.N. headquarters today that the repeated incidents along the canal “are very disturbing and arouse anxiety about the effectiveness of the cease-fire in that area.” He said he was convinced that “many of these incidents could have been avoided if both parties had been willing to make use of the U.N. cease-fire observation machinery and had complained directly to the U.N. military observers for remedial action, instead of reacting impulsively by immediately shooting in cases of alleged breaches of the cease-fire.”
Mr. Thant endorsed Gen. Bull’s position and urged both Israel and Egypt “to exercise utmost restraint in the Suez Canal sector and, in particular, to observe strictly the arrangements agreed to by them.”
Four Israeli soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in the daylong battle along the Suez Canal yesterday, according to an official report in Tel Aviv today. Ten civilians were killed and one injured. Five of the civilians were killed in the Egyptian shelling of East Kantara and five when Egyptian shells hit an Israeli freight train. Eight of the civilian casualties were Arabs living in the Sinai peninsula.
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