Syrian Border Attack Triggers New Israel Plans for Protection

Israel’s Cabinet discussed today steps to protect the lives of border dwellers, in the wake of Syria’s latest attack which resulted in the deaths of five Israelis. A full report of the latest border clash was given to the full Cabinet here at its regular Sunday meeting today by Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, chief of staff of Israel’s defense forces. One of the steps considered by the Cabinet was the construction of more shelters for civilians on the frontiers.

The five Israeli victims were Aryeh Orenstein, a 21-year-old sergeant, who was wounded in the three-hour battle last Thursday, and died a few hours later; and four Bedouins, who died when Syrian shells hit Zangariah, a Bedouin village northeast of Almagor. Almagor is near the site of a Syrian project to divert the headwaters of the Jordan River and has frequently suffered Syrian attacks in the last two years. The Bedouin victims were a pregnant 30-year-old woman, two of her daughters, aged 5 and 2, and a 10-year-old girl relative. They were members of a tribe which fought with the Israeli forces during Israel’s War of Independence.

Israel lodged a sharp protest with the Israeli-Syrian Mixed Armistice Commission after United Nations observers brought about a cease-fire in the battle, which followed a Syrian attack on an Israeli tractor team.

The Damascus radio, heard here, reported that Syria has warned the United Nations Security Council that a threat to security and peace had developed because of Israeli “attacks.” Dr. Hassan Muraywed, the Syrian Foreign Minister, declared in Damascus today that his Ministry had sent to the U.N. details of the “aggression on the Syrian border and against the site of exploitation of the Jordan tributaries in particular.” (At the United Nations, however, it was said today that, thus far, no complaint on this incident has been received from Syria.)