Army Chief of Staff Gen. David Elazar, speaking at Bet Sokolow, the headquarters for journalists here last night, defended the disengagement agreement with Egypt, said there had been no violations so far and claimed that the new Israeli lines in Sinai were defensible ones. Elazar acknowledged that there were some problems in connection with the separation of forces, such as the Egyptian SAM missile sites east of the Suez Canal. (He referred to the missile sites prior to today’s report that four had been demolished.) But he said all of them would be solved within the 40 day period allotted to carrying out the disengagement accord. “We did-not leave the critical problems for the end,” he said.
Elazar stated that the positions the Israeli forces would take up just west of the Gidi and Mitla passes in Sinai were good from an operations point of view, for defense and for the concentration of strength to achieve any desired mission. He said that once disengagement is completed, the army would concentrate on reorganizing its ranks. He said that some of the lessons of the Yom Kippur War have already been put to practical use and others are still under study.
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