The Times of London took issue today with the position of Major Gen. Vagn Bennike head of the UN truce observance organization in Palestine, who had reported to the Security Council that the raid on Kibya must have been carried out by regular Israeli-army forces since the Israeli border settlements did not have types of arms and equipment known to have been used in the raid.
In a dispatch from its Jerusalem correspondent, the Times said it was a proven fact that some border settlements “have been supplied with arms of exactly the type which Gen. Bennike, in his report on the Kibya incident to the Security Council said was equipment used exclusively by the regular army.”
The Israelis, the dispatch added, “have made no attempt to conceal these settlement arsenals from visiting foreign correspondents and presumably would not have attempted to conceal them from UN observers. It may, indeed, be one of the causes of the failure of the UN supervisory system in Palestine that its observers are too few and too harassed by investigations after the event to keep a proper watch over the frontier and to be forewarned of conditions out of which incidents may develop.”
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