Israel Increases Pressure on Algerians for Release of El Al Crew, Israeli Passengers

Israel stepped up today its pressure on Algeria to release the seven crew members and five passengers of a hijacked El Al Boeing 707 airliner still detained in Algiers after the release yesterday of seven women and three children. The women included the airliner’s three air hostesses. The remaining detainees are all male Israeli nationals.

At the regular Cabinet meeting today, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Foreign Minister Abba Eban were empowered to take appropriate international action to recover the airliner and the 12 remaining detainees, including instructions to ask for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council. The Government spokesman said the issue of whether and when the request for the Security Council session should be made was left to the discretion of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. It was indicated that majority opinion in the Cabinet favored a Council session and that the request was largely a matter of timing. The Algerians initially released 18 non-Israeli nationals on the airliner almost immediately after the hijacked plane landed in Algiers airport last Tuesday.

Mr. Eban told the Cabinet meeting that no government in the world was “deluding itself” that Israel could or would acquiesce in further delays on release of the plane and the 12 detainees. He also said that, in all its contacts with other governments on the incident, it was being emphasized that every plane which had landed inadvertently in Israel – including Arab planes and Arab passengers – had been released promptly.

In still another pressure move, the Government published a formal statement today calling the hijacking of the plane and its 38 passengers and 10 crew members “an international crime of the greatest severity, contravening international law and morality. “The statement warned that Israel would make “full use of her rights in the United Nations bodies” and would “examine the steps necessary to attain her Just aim which is the immediate release of the plane crew and passengers.”

AWAITING OUTCOME OF PILOTS ASSOCIATION NEGOTIATIONS

One of the factors involved in the matter of the timing of the request for a Security Council session was understood to be an expected report on the success or failure of the mission of Capt. O.L.A. Forsberg of Finland, vice-president of the 33,000-member International Airline Pilots Association, who was sent to Algeria to seek release of the plane and the male detainees. The pilots organization has threatened to boycott flights to and from Algeria unless the Algerian Government acted to release the plane and the Israeli nationals. The Cabinet also was waiting for Algeria’s official response to a request from UN Secretary-General U Thant to release the airliner and the detainees.

The Cabinet meeting began with a report by Transport Minister Moshe Carmel, who described security measures implemented on Israeli planes to diminish future hijacking actions. He reported that the number of passengers on El Al flights not only had not declined in the wake of the hijacking but that many air travelers had asked that their tickets on other airlines be endorsed to El Al so that they could fly on the Israeli airline planes.

Mr. Eban told the meeting that all Security Council members with which Israel has diplomatic relations had been approached on the issue. He said it appeared that all contacted would vote at the projected Security Council meeting to call on Algeria to release immediately the plane and the detainees. He reported that Mr, Thant and his undersecretary, Dr. Ralph Bunche, were taking “vigorous action” to obtain Algerian compliance, out of fears that the hijacking and continuation of the present situation could endanger peace in the Middle East. He said also that several governments had expressed to Israel deep concern over the possible results of such air piracy and the cooperation of any government in such acts.

The Government statement called the hijacking “a case of armed robbery perpetrated against defenseless civilians” and urged world press and public opinion “to continue protesting against this wanton act.”

In an earlier statement to the newspaper Yedlot Achronot, Mr. Carmel said that it was difficult to believe that “the Arabs entertain the illusion that while Israeli airlines are vulnerable” to hijacking, “theirs are immune. This will not be the case.” He also said that Egypt “will not emerge clean” from the incident because that country housed and encouraged the Arab terrorist organizations which have claimed “credit” for the aerial thievery. Calling the situation created by the hijacking “a double-edged sword,” the Transport Minister expressed the hope that the Arabs would have “second thoughts” about it.

10 WOMEN RELEASED AND FLOWN OUT SAY THEY WERE WELL TREATED

The 10 Israeli women and children – including three air hostesses – released Saturday by Algeria and flown by Swiss air to Geneva were expected at Lydda Airport in Israel Sunday. They told the Geneva press that they had been well treated and had received good food while In detention. They said that Algerian officials had assured them that the remaining detainees would be freed “within seven days,” (The Italian Foreign Ministry reported Algiers had given assurances that the crew and passengers were in perfect health.)

Israeli sources said yesterday that security officials had learned the identity of the three men who hijacked the El Al jetliner Tuesday and their places of origin. Foreign Minister Eban called in Aldo Pierantoni, the Italian Minister, over the weekend and stressed the importance of Italian intervention since the hijacking had occurred in Italian air space while the plane was enroute from Rome to Lydda.

Since Algeria is still technically at war with Israel, it is conducting a “full scale investigation” to determine if the million dollar jet and the Israelis should be held. London’s Sunday Observer reported that the Algerian Government was engaged in tough negotiations with leaders of the Arab Front for the Liberation of Palestine about the hijacked plane, who claim credit for the hijacking. It reported that President Houari Boumedienne has apparently not yet been persuaded to accept the Front’s proposal to keep the aircraft and crew as a means of forcing Israel to treat captured El Fatah members as prisoners of war (or to release them). The President has to balance this request against the national interests of his country, the paper said.

Israel has not signed the 1963 Tokyo draft convention for the prevention of aircraft hijacking but its contents are being studied, Transport Ministry sources said today in reply to questions by JTA. Out of the entire United Nations membership, fewer than 10 states have signed the convention, approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a UN agency, and it is still not in force.

It has many provisions touching upon questions of sovereignty, the definition of air space and other matters not directly concerned with civil aviation so that all countries are studying it thoroughly before deciding on their stand, the Ministry source said. The El Al hijacking will not affect Israel’s position on the convention, the sources said.