United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold left for Gaza, on route to Cairo, this morning after a more than three-hour meeting with Premier David Ben Gurion last night. It is understood that no substantial progress was made during yesterday’s two-part parley on the Mt. Scopus deadlock.
Mr. Hammarskjold and the Premier conferred alone for 75 minutes. Then they called in their principal aides and continued to explore the situation for another two hours. After the meeting’s conclusion, close to midnight, one of the participants said that “nothing much had been changed” in the situation.
It was expected before the meeting, that the two statesmen would discuss UN proposals of a “technical nature” aimed at limiting the likelihood of future incidents. Among these proposals, it is understood, was one that Israel restrict its police patrolling on Mt. Scopus
For their part, the Israelis were said to have reiterated their insistence on full implementation of Article Eight of the Israel-Jordan armistice pact which guarantees that Israel shall have the right to re-open the Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University facilities on the height–something which the Jordanians have consistently refused to allow.
The Israelis were also known to have taken exception to a report on the May 26 incident on the height when Col. George A. Flint, UN head of the MAC, and four Israeli policemen were killed. Israel feels that UN truce chief Maj. Gen. Carl von Horn’s report of the incident was a whitewash of Jordan. Both Gen. von Horn and Andrew W. Cordier, Mr. Hammarskjold’s executive assistant who has been working on the Mt. Scopus deadlock in recent days, were present at last night’s session.
Before Mr. Hammarskjold arrived, the Israel authorities offered to re-open for use by Arab villagers of Issawia on Mt. Scopus a road from that village to the Jordan lines which runs through the Israeli enclave. The road was blocked off by Israel after the May 26 meeting.
The Jordan press reported today that the Issawia villagers rejected Israel’s offer to open the road for two hours in the morning and a like period in the evening. They insist on freedom of passage 24 hours a day. It is understood that Mr. Cordier, who has disputed the right of the Israelis to close off the road, was on the height yesterday trying to convince the Arabs to accept the four-hour arrangement as “temporary.”
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