The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization cleared Israel today of responsibility in the wounding of two UN observers by a landmine on Mt. Scopus last month. An investigation convinced UN headquarters that the mine which a UN team detonated was an old one left over from the 1948 war, not an anti-personnel bomb set since then.
Two Canadian observers, Majors George Flint and Marcel Breault were seriously hurt when the mine exploded. Earlier, when they had come to Mt. Scopus in response to an Israeli complaint that Jordanian troops had illegally occupied a house in the demilitarized area of the height, the UN. Officers had refused an Israeli escort. The UN officers said they knew the area was mined, but preferred to approach the entrenched Jordanians without having Israelis in their party. Shortly thereafter, the mine went off.
The Israel- Jordan MAC censured Israel today for a violation1 of the armistice agreement on August 1 in an incident in which two Jordanian national guard members were killed. The Israeli delegation objected to the verdict, insisting that it had not been proved that Israeli troops were involved. The UN chairman of the MAC stressed that his vote against Israel did not imply that the Israeli authorities were implicated in the incident.
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