Israel to Conduct Independent Investigation of Sdom Ambush

The United Nations truce headquarters here today issued a statement announcing that Israel had submitted a complaint about the murder of five Israelis and the wounding of a sixth in an attack by a group of Jordanian infiltrators on two Israeli civilian cars which took place last Thursday on the Sdom-Beer-sheba road.

The statement said that Israel did not request an investigation. When Maj. Gen. E. L. M. Burns, UN truce chief, approached the Israeli Foreign Ministry stating that “the grave incident” called for an emergency meeting of the Israel–Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission and for an investigation by UN observers, the Foreign Ministry’s representative replied that Israel could not agree to an investigation by UN observers.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirming that Israel had refused to attend the Commission meeting or to allow the UN observers to have a hand in the investigation declared that the government felt no useful purpose would be served by the steps proposed by Gen. Burns, in view of the fact that the Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission stated a few days ago that indiscriminate murders of Israelis by Jordanians did not constitute a “provocation” within the meaning of UN armistice regulations.

Ballistics examinations have revealed that the bullets which killed the five Israelis in the road ambush near Sdom came from guns used in two previous fatal attacks on Israelis in that area, the Foreign Ministry spokesman declared. In view of this information, he continued, it is assumed that the Jordanian authorities are aware of the identity of the murderers. The two earlier attacks, in April and July, cost a total of six lives.

FOREIGN MINISTER CRITICIZES U. N. FAILURE TO SECURE ISRAELI-LIVES

Foreign Minister Golda Mer, addressing a meeting of the Working Mothers Association here last night, declared that the world must understand that “Israeli lives are as valuable as anybody else’s. She strongly criticized the United Nations’ failure to make secure the lives of Israeli farmers and townspeople.

The UN truce headquarters here took issue today with the criticism voiced by the Israeli press against the chairman of the Jordan Israel Mixed Armistice Commission for accepting the paragraph in the Jordanian resolution describing the recent Israel retaliatory raid on Husan as an “unprovoked” action.

“His reason for doing so was that Israeli troops who carried out the attack were not acting in self defense, and the contention that a party may legitimately take military actions when “provoked” by previous incidents would be contrary to the cease-fire obligations contained in the General Armistice Agreement and reconfirmed during the Secretary-General’s visit last April,” a statement by the UN truce group said.