Israeli Army circles revealed today that a Czechoslovakian-made rocket launcher known as “Katushya” was used by Arab saboteurs in an attack on the Dead Sea Potash Works on the southern shores of the Dead Sea yesterday. The rockets were fired from Jordanian territory and landed harmlessly in evaporation ponds. According to an Army spokesman, fragments of the exploded rockets ere identified as the type that is fired by the 130mm “Katushya.” The same weapon was used in an attack on settlements in the Beisan Valley last month. A military spokesman reported that a bazooka shell was fired at an Israeli armored patrol car near Shaar Hagolan in the Beisan Valley today. The bazooka was silenced by return fire. There were no Israeli casualties.
A 22-year-old Israeli Arab from Galilee convicted of espionage was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment by a district court yesterday. He is Fuad Asad, a former Hebrew teacher in East Jerusalem, who was found guilty of providing military information to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, an Arab group that supports terrorist activities. Asad was said to have translated maps and charts from Hebrew into Arabic. He was reported to have been recruited for espionage by one of his students, a young man from Hebron. Asad was a graduate of an Israeli high school.
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