Work in the Lake Huleh area where Israeli and Syrian troops, armor and artillery clashed last week is slated to be resumed tomorrow when a new earth digger arrives to replace the machine damaged by Syrian mortar fire.
United Nations observers have completed their third ‘survey in the area where the incidents have occurred, but their report has not yet been announced officially. Already, how ever, the Syrians are reported determined to again interfere with the canal drainage project when it resumes even if the third survey proves, as did the two previous efforts, that the disputed area is entirely outside the demilitarized zone.
Meanwhile, two Israeli civilians were murdered in the Lachich development area adjoining the Jordanian border this week-end. The jeep in which they had been riding was found abandoned several hours later near Tel Lachish. on the border. Footprints from that place were tracked in the direction of the Jordanian village of Idna,
U.S. DID NOT ASK ISRAEL TO HALT WORK IN HULEH, ISRAELIS SAY
Meanwhile. Israeli circles explained today that the United States did not ask Israel to halt work in the Huleh drainage project. American diplomats here merely expressed support of the UN request that Israel cooperate in its survey to the extent, if necessary, of interrupting work while measurements were being taken at different points, The Israelis had actually complied with this UN request a day before the Americans endorsed it.
(At the United Nations, a spokesman for the Israel delegation denied reports that the Israel Government had “bowed to urgent American demands” in halting work on the Lake Huleh reclamation project. He said the Israeli position had been misrepresented in published statements attributed to Egyptian sources in Cairo. This report, he stated, had made it appear that Israel had to be forced to cease wrongdoing. He said the suspension of work had been agreed to “in a spirit of cooperation with the United Nations.)’
Maj. Gen. E. L. M. Burns, commander of the UN Emergency Force on the Egyptian-Israel border, arrived in Jerusalem today for a conference with Maj. Gen. Carl C. von Horn, his successor in the post of UN truce chief.
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