Egypt’s Ambassador to Israel, Saad Mortada, said on an Israel Radio interview that the aid Egypt has offered to the Palestine Liberation Organization consists only of medical supplies and does not signify any change of Egypt’s cool attitude toward the PLO.
Reports from Cairo yesterday said Egypt had accepted a Palestinian request for medical aid to treat victims of Israel’s air raid on Beirut last Friday. It was the first official contact between Egypt and the PLO since the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was signed two years ago.
Mortada said the fighting now going on in Lebanon would not have occurred if the Arab states had followed President Anwar Sadat’s lead and made peace with Isreal. Meanwhile, the economies of towns and villages in northern Israel have been hard hit by the continuing shelling and rocket fire from terrorist positions in Lebanon. Hotels in Nahariya, where three people were killed by rockets last Wednesday, reported a drop in the occupancy rate from 90 to 10 percent and many cancellations.
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