Egypt has agreed to an Israeli request for a one-week extension of the search for the bodies of missing Israeli soldiers believed killed during the initial stages of the Yom Kippur War. it was announced today. Between 90-100 Israeli soldiers are still missing on the Egyptian front and are believed to have fallen in the vicinity of the former Barlev Line, now in Egyptian hands.
The search deadline, set by the Israeli-Egyptian disengagement agreement signed last Jan. 19 expired yesterday. But delays and difficulties attending the operation made it necessary for Israel to ask for additional time. Relatives of missing soldiers have expressed fear that one more week will not be enough to locate all the missing bodies and a second extension may be requested. It was learned that Gen. Herzl Shafir, head of the Army Manpower Branch, will meet with his Egyptian counterpart. Gen. Majdoub, shortly for that purpose.
Israeli authorities meanwhile have accused the Egyptians of obstructing and delaying the body search. The searches are carried out by teams of Israeli and United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) personnel accompanied by Egyptian liaison officers. The Egyptians, however, have restricted the Israeli personnel to rabbis, members of the chaplaincy corps. Yesterday a team of rabbis headed by Army Chief Chaplain Gen. Mordechai Firon was kept waiting four hours at a UN checkpoint between Kantara and Balooza for an Egyptian liaison officer who never showed up. The Egyptians refused to admit the team into their zone and yesterday’s body search had to be cancelled.
Meanwhile, the search for Egyptian dead in the Israeli zone is continuing. One of the bodies found was that of Aatef Sadat, an Egyptian pilot who was the step-brother of President Anwar Sadat. His remains were handed over to Egypt last weekend and he was buried today in the Nile delta. He was shot down while participating in an Egyptian air attack on Refidim in the Bir Gifgafa region of central Sinai only ten minutes after Egypt launched its surprise attack last Oct. 6. The body, missing until last week, was identified through papers found on it.
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