Israel Knocks out 80% of Egypt’s Oil Facilities in Fierce Fights in Suez Area

In a fierce Egyptian-Israeli battle across the Suez Canal and in the area of the city of Suez, lasting three and a half hours, Israel knocked out today 80 percent of Egypt’s oil-refining capacity. After the Egyptians started the fighting, the Israeli Army spokesman said here tonight, Israel came back with air power, and also laid down a massive artillery barrage, using some of the largest-caliber Soviet guns captured from Egypt during the Six-Day War last June.

The spokesman said the Egyptians opened fire in the Port Tewfik area and at the southern end of the Suez Canal. It was the first Egyptian action since Saturday, when Egyptian missiles sank the Israeli destroyer Elath on the high seas.

According to the Army spokesman, the skies of the western shore of the Suez Canal were blackened by smoke, as Egypt’s most important oil refineries were set ablaze by Israeli shells. Outside Suez, the E1 Nasser refinery was destroyed, and the Suez refinery was demolished. E1 Nasser produced 3 million to 3.5 million tons of oil annually, the other facility had an annual capacity of 2 million tons a year.

The fighting subsided at nightfall. Israel said that only one of its soldiers had been slightly wounded in the entire battle. (Cairo dispatches received in London today said the Egyptians claimed they had downed an Israeli Mirage jet fighter in the action, and knocked out three Israeli tanks. Israel denied the loss of any tanks or planes.)

As reports still flowed in on the results of the Suez battle, the Army spokesman announced tonight that fighting had broken out on the Jordanian front. An Israeli border patrol exchanged fire with Jordanian commandos, near the settlement of Tirat Zvi in the Beisan Valley about 20 miles northeast of Nablus. Two Israelis were seriously wounded.

EGYPTIANS SUFFER GREATEST ECONOMIC DAMAGE SINCE JUNE; DAYAN SEES ‘CASUS BELLI’

The blasting of Egypt’s oil refineries was the most staggering blow suffered by that country’s economy since the capture of the Sinai oil fields by Israeli forces last June.

The Egyptian loss to Israel of the Bas Sudr and other Sinai Peninsula oil fields had been offset since June by the expanding output of the Morgan offshore concession in the Gulf of Suez and in the western desert near E1 Alamein. The Pan-American Oil Co., an affiliate of Standard Oil of Indiana, has been working with the Egyptian Government’s General Petroleum Co. in both regions, and most of the Pan-American technicians who left Egypt last June have returned.

According to observers, Egypt would probably have had sufficient oil products to meet her domestic market requirements for the balance of the year without spending scarce foreign currency. But today’s destruction of her oil refining capacity may well have changed that picture.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said here last night that the sinking of the Elath was “casus belli” and indicated that Nasser was anxious to reopen hostilities with Israel. Gen. Dayan said it was clear that Nasser gave the orders for the strike against the Elath, just as five months ago he had ordered the blockade of the Strait of Tiran which led to the Six-Day War. The Elath sinking. Gen. Dayan told an audience in the Tel Amim suburb, was tantamount to a declaration of war by Egypt.

As the Defense Minister spoke, Israeli air force planes pinpointed the spot where the Elath went down, 14 miles from shore, confirming that the vessel was clearly in international waters when she was attacked. The Israeli pilots reported that the destroyer sank in shallow waters, a little under ninety feet deep. The spot is marked by a dark oil slick.

(In Moscow, today, the Soviet Government’s official organ, Izvestia, virtually boasted of its complicity with Egypt in the Egyptian sinking of the Elath, Izvestia stated: “The Soviet Union did not and does not conceal its help, including arms.” It stated that the “Israeli aggressors are continuing to play with fire, and are paying for it.”