The situation along the Israel-Syrian border has seriously deteriorated within the past 48 hours, the Times of London reported here today in a dispatch from Beirut.
The report said that Dr. Marouf Dawaleeby, Syrian Defense Minister, cancelled Saturday a plane trip to Cairo to consult with Premier Nasser, in order to attend an urgent Syrian Cabinet meeting devoted to a discussion of the frontier situation. No details of the Cabinet meeting, the second of the day, were available except that it concerned the border.
Two Syrian soldiers died today in a pitched battle between Israeli and Syrian units inside Israel territory in the northern Lake Kinneret area. The Syrian soldiers crossed the Israel frontier with a party of Arab workmen who came to harvest crops on land insisde Israel. When an Israeli patrol approached, the Syrian soldiers fired on them. The Israelis returned the fire and the Syrians retreated, leaving their two dead behind. Israel immediately protested the incident to the Israel-Syrian Mixed Armistice Commission.
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