Security Council Hears Israel’s Plea to Condemn Egypt’s Acts

In a powerful speech in which he accused the Egyptian Government and its armed forces of “steady, accumulated, relentless pressure and hostility day by day,” Abba Eban, Israel’s delegate to the United Nations, appealed today to the Security Council for a “clear statement in incisive terms,” condemning Egypt for such “deliberate attrition.”

After hearing Ambassador Eban and a short statement by Egyptian delegate Omar Loutfi, the Council, acting on the suggestion of British delegate Sir Pierson Dixon, adjourned pending receipt of a report from the Israel-Egypt Mixed Armistice Commission on the incidents cited by the Israel delegate.

Ambassador Eban told the Council that the situation in the Gaza strip area has been extremely grave for the last five weeks, causing among the residents of Israel villages in the vicinity extreme “disquiet and indignation.” In the ten-day period between March 24 and April 3, he said, the situation has been perhaps “the most intensively dangerous since the armistice was signed.”

Egypt’s provocations have consisted of three types of violation, Ambassador Eban declared. There have been attacks by armed marauders, of which the Patish murder of a wedding guest was a “typical” case; there have been minings of roads and Israel patrol transports, seven such cases having occurred since March 12, and all of these minings are certainly “beyond the competence of non-military personnel;” and there have been attacks on Israel patrols that have numbered 15 since March 1.

“These have been direct, overt attacks by Egyptian armed forces,” Ambassador Eban said, and not the work of mere infiltrators. The Egyptian armed aggressions seemed to have increased since a recent visit to the Gaza area by Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser. “It is hardly to be doubted that there have been reinforcements for the Egyptian Army units in the Gaza area.”

The Israel delegate pointed out that in March the Israel-Egypt Mixed Armistice Commission condemned Egypt six times for aggressions in the Gaza area. During the same month the MAC condemned Israel for one “aggression,” a case in which it was clear that Israel troops were only returning fire directed from an Egyptian outpost. These MAC condemnations concerned cases in which Israel lost five dead and 50 wounded.

“Whall we say that the Council is not interested,” Ambassador Eban asked, “when steady attrition piles up the numbers of dead and wounded one by one and two by two# In a year these cases would amount to 60 Israel dead, 600 Israel wounded and 72 condemnations against Egypt. It is clear that if this incessant Egyptian provocation continues then the armistice agreement is in danger.

“This is not a case of refugees making trouble. These are cases of deliberate provocations by the government and its armed forces. The Egyptian Government does not take seriously the resolutions that you have passed here–as we can see by such an incident as Patish, minings, attacks on armed patrols, attacks on villages, and the grave and costly occurrence this week at Nachal Oz.”