The United Nations Security Council had on file today a protest “in the strongest terms” from Israel against the “illegal” detention in the Suez Canal by Egypt of the Israeli-chartered Norwegian freighter, the S. S. Mars.
The protest was made by Mordecai R. Kidron, deputy head of the Israel delegation to the UN, who said in a letter that the Mars was three days late in arriving at Haifa on August 21 because of Egypt’s “high-handed and arbitrary behavior” at Port Suez, the southern entrance to the canal.
Kidron said the ship’s captain informed Israeli authorities he had been unable to obtain from Egyptian authorities any reason for the delay, other than that “authority” for the Mars to join a convoy through the Canal had not been received from Cairo.
Kidron declared Israel considered the case of the Mars “a gross violation of the principle of free passage for shipping of all nations through the canal.”
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