The first United Nations observation posts were established this morning on both banks of the Suez Canal. A last-minute hitch in the arrangements was overcome and the posts became operative at 6 A.M. local time (Noon, NYDST).
Eight observers, members of the old United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, were sent in by Lt. Gen. Odd Bull who will be responsible for the cease-fire observation force as the Secretary-General’s personal representative. Four are based at Kantara on the eastern (Israeli) side of the canal, and four at Ismailia on the Egyptian side. Gen. Bull has asked for 25 more observers to bring the force up to 33. (At United Nations headquarters in New York a spokesman said “substantial agreement” had been reached in talks with Egypt and Israel on the nationalities of the observers to be selected.)
(The Christian Science Monitor said today that President Nasser of Egypt was reported to have set roughly two months as a period of waiting and preparation during which diplomacy must be tried to obtain Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. In a dispatch datelined Nicosia, Cyprus, the newspaper said that “independent information coming out of Egypt suggests that President Nasser would prefer not to fight a big battle with Israel again during his term of office as president.”)
Apparently unresolved was the question whether the U.N. observers would have a marine arm as well and would patrol the canal itself. Israel has used small boats on the canal in the Port Tewfik area and has warned that if the Egyptians attempt to deny the canal to Israel vessels, Israel will not permit Egyptian craft to sail on the waterway.
The young Israeli naval officer who commanded one of the vessels in the Israeli “fleet” on the canal told correspondents today that the big weekend battle broke out when Egyptian gunners attacked his and other Israeli-flagged boats as they moved along Salt Lake and the Suez Canal. His vessel, he said, was at times not more than 50 yards from the Egyptian positions on the west bank of the canal.
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