The Israel Cabinet met in extraordinary session today to review the implications of the recurrent Syrian attacks on Israeli workers in the area south of Lake Huleh, along the Israel-Syrian frontier. Yesterday’s attack, which resulted in a two-and-a-half hour tank and cannon duel, left one Israeli dead and three wounded in the frontier Kibbutz Halatha to which the Syrians spread their firing.
It was reported that the Cabinet unanimously decided to proceed with the drainage work in the Lake Huleh area, though the official communique following the session did not reveal any decision. Premier David Ben Gurion reviewed the situation and Foreign Minister Golda Meir reported on her conversation with United Nations truce chief Maj. Gen. Carl C. von Horn, whom she summoned to the Foreign Office yesterday to explain the gravity with which Israel views the latest border outbreak.
In a statement to the press, Mrs. Meir this morning expressed hope that the United Nations will succeed in influencing the Syrians to end their shooting at Israeli workers in the Lake Huleh region. She emphasized that the drainage work which the Syrians are attempting to disrupt is being carried out on Israeli soil which is not even in the demilitarized zone.
An uneasy cease-fire, enforced after several false starts yesterday, continues in the Lake Huleh region today. Tension, however, continues high as Israeli settlers clear away the debris at Kibbutz Halatha where shell bursts took their tool among the settlers who had taken shelter in previously prepared entrenchments.
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