Israel Cabinet Meets on Border Attacks; Army Chief Participates

The Israel Cabinet met in extraordinary session today to consider the situation along the Jordanian border where Arab gunfire has claimed the lives of six Israelis in two days. The Army Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Moshe Dayan, participated in the meeting.

The fourth victim of Sunday’s attack by Jordanian machine guns on several hundred delegates to the twelfth national Israel Archaeological Congress died last night of wounds. He was Baruch Shochetman, 66, one of the leading Jewish bibliographers in the world. Known as a “walking encyclopedia” because of his fabulous memory, Mr. Shochetman was a librarian at the Hebrew University from the day of its establishment.

Meanwhile, the army announced that Egyptian troops attacked an Israel patrol in the Nitzana-El Auja area last night. The patrol was inside Israel territory when the Egyptians opened up. One soldier was wounded.

The Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission censured Israel today for its attack on the Gharandal police post in Jordan on the night of September 12 after Jordanians had killed several Israelis the day before. The Israeli delegation to the MAC rejected responsibility for the incident, insisting that Jordan “must bear full responsibility for the situation” which “its own madness had created.”

Today’s meeting, the delegation said, had demonstrated the futility to which Jordan had reduced MAC operations. “While the wave of Jordan aggressions along Israel’s borders is mounting and the toll of Israeli lives increasing, the commission limits itself to a discussion of isolated Israeli counter-action taken in self-defense,” it pointed out.

If there existed on Jordan’s part the same desire to implement all the provisions of the armistice pact that animates Israel, the Israelis said, the MAC would be “grappling today realistically and constructively with only one problem, namely how to put an end to Jordan aggression that has set the demarcation line on fire.”