The United Nations Security Council will meet tomorrow to continue its deliberations on the fighting which took place on the Syrian-Israeli border two weeks ago, in which Israel was forced to use jet planes. A report circulated yesterday by UN Secretary-General U Thant, among the members of the Security Council, charged that it was Syria that actually started the fighting.
The report was submitted by Lt. Gen. Odd Bull, chief of the UN Truce Supervision Organization, following an investigation on the spot of the circumstances under which the Syrian-Israeli border clash occurred on November 13. In addition to reporting that the firing had been initiated by the Syrians, Gen; Bull also confirmed in his report the following facts presented to the UN by Israel:
1. That the Israel border patrol, upon which the Syrians started this shooting, had traveled along a track definitely inside Israel’s border; 2. That Israel’s counter-strike against the Syrians, using jet planes, had not taken to the air until after UN military observers had failed to get Syrian acceptance of a cease-fire arrangement, to which Israel did accede.
Gen. Bull told the Council that the path taken by the Israeli patrol which had taken the first Syrian fire had been demarked as being on the Israel side by a Canadian team of exports which had consulted both the Syrians and Israelis separately. However, he proposed that the area be studied again by a joint survey team to exclude “possibilities of dangerous flare-ups” and to help “bring back tranquility to Arab and Israeli farmers in the area, and contribute to some extent to the diminution of tension between the two countries.”
He stated that there was “suspicion and bitterness” on both sides, part of it due to Israel’s refusal to recognize Syria’s authority in the demilitarized zone in the area, and also “as a consequence of Syria’s steadfast refusal to seek an end to its conflict with Israel.”
As a result of the clash, Gen. Bull reported, three Israeli soldiers were killed and nine wounded, five of them seriously; two members of Kibbutz Dan were injured; Kibbutz Dan had suffered great damage; while Syria suffered seven dead and 26 injured, “most of them civilians.”
As to material damage on the Syrian side, the UNTSO chief reported that it could not be ascertained because Syria had not allowed the UN observers to enter “all of the locations mentioned in the Syrian complaint as having been shelled by Israel artillery or bombed by the Israel Air Force on Nov. 13.”
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