Israel today requested an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to deal with aggressions by Syria along Israel’s northern frontier. The request was presented formally to Ambassador Sivert A. Nielsen, of Norway, this month’s president of the Council. The Council is expected to meet on the complaint Thursday or Friday.
Two ranking members of Israel’s mission here, Acting Permanent Representative Joel Barroumi and Col. Yaakov Monbaz, an armistice affairs expert permanently attached to Israel’s UN delegation, conferred on the Syrian situation this afternoon with Secretary-General U Thant.
A statement issued by the Israel delegation declared that the request for an “immediate” meeting of the Security Council was motivated by “a new climax in Syrian acts of aggression against Israel last night, when two Israelis were shot to death by Syrian soldiers who had set up an ambush inside Israel.” The statement revealed that Israel has informed “friendly governments of its grave concern at the situation which has been created by Syria,” and declared:
“The latest Syrian act followed a period of continued Syrian firing across the armistice lines. During the past four weeks, Syrians opened fire on more than 20 occasions, mostly on Israeli villagers working in the fields of Haon, but also in the Almagor and Huleh areas.
AMBUSH SHOWS AGGRESSIVE INTENTIONS; KIDNAPPINGS RECALLED
“The ambush yesterday near Almagor, north of Tiberias, indicated Syria’s determination to commit aggressive actions against normal Israeli life and peaceful activities along the whole armistice line. Since last night, the Syrians have opened fire twice, this time in the Huleh area.
“The latest chain of Syrian acts of violence was initiated by the kidnaping on July 13 of six vacationers, including three Israelis, from a boat beached on the northeastern corner of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias). The three Israelis are still held by the Syrians.
“Throughout the whole period of Syrian aggression, Israel has been consistently in touch with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization on the spot, as well as with the United Nations Secretariat in New York, but Syria has shown no response to repeated requests to honor its obligations. On the contrary, the latest climax shows that Syria has escalated its acts of aggression in defiance of its obligations. It is to deal with this dangerous situation that Israel has requested an immediate session of the Security Council.”
In recent years, both Israel and the Arab states have avoided calling for a Security Council meeting on any of their grievances. The last time the Council held hearings on an Arab-Israeli issue was in April 1962. At that time, eight sessions were devoted to Syrian and Israeli grievances and counter-complaints, in which each accused the other of aggression.
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