The crackle of automatic fire and the heavy blasts of demolition charges echoed over both sides of the Suez Canal today as the first phase of the Israeli withdrawal from the west bank of the canal ended. The sounds were not those of war but of disengagement. Soldiers of the Egyptian Third Army Corps, exuberant over the lifting of three months’ encirclement, fired weapons into the air and shot off fireworks.
Israeli forces, heading northeast in trucks and buses painted with signs that read “Goodby Africa” and “We’re Going Home,” were in a happy mood, too. But the reported promise by the Israeli Chief of Staff not to engage in a scorched earth policy in the evacuated areas appeared to have been forgotten. The Israelis are making off with huge quantities of Egyptian war booty. But whatever military installations could not be moved –such as fuel dumps–were destroyed. Local papers published today a series of authorized photographs of demolished hangars and concrete abuttments at three military airfields handed back to the Egyptians.
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan visited the withdrawing Israeli units at their new lines today. He was accompanied–to the surprise of the troops–by two prominent academicians, Prof. Israel Dostrovski, president of the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Prof. Yuval Neeman, president of Tel Aviv University. Some of the Israeli soldiers are scheduled for demobilization and are heading home. Others will man the temporary new lines north of the Suez-Cairo road. Eventually, they will be pulled back to the final disengagement lines in Sinai about 20 kilometers east of the Suez Canal.
There was activity within the Third Army perimeter today but it was not determined whether the Egyptians were beginning to carry out their part of the bargain–thinning out their armed forces east of the canal. According to the agreement signed Jan. 21, the Egyptians should have begun yesterday to transfer most of their troops and heavy equipment to the west side of the waterway. The Egyptian news media so far have made no mention of that process being underway.
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