Terrorists Stage Fake Raids on Israel to Impress Foreign Journalists

El Fatah, the principle terrorist group operating in Jordan, is staging fake raids on “Israeli territory” for the benefit of foreign journalists, it was learned here today from West Bank residents recently returned from Jordan.

According to the reports, El Fatah is trying to maintain its reputation as an effective guerrilla force by inviting journalists to accompany commando units on ostensible sorties against Israel. The journalists are taken by truck during the night to the banks of the Zarka River, a small tributary of the Jordan which the guerrillas pass off as the genuine Jordan River.

While the correspondent waits, the guerrillas ford the stream with rubber tubes. They return shortly and report that they have planted explosives under an “Israeli power station.” The journalist is supposed to be convinced of their story by an explosion which follows a few minutes later.

The returned travellers said that El Fatah also stages fake gun-battles across the spurious Jordan with their own men firing over each other’s heads from opposite banks for the benefit of the news media.

A military spokesman disclosed today that Israeli jets attacked an El Fatah base in Karameh village in Jordan yesterday during a series of artillery exchanges across the Jordan River. He said there were no casualties on the Israeli side.

Saboteurs blew up a water reservoir about 300 yards from the Lebanese border in Kibbutz Manera in Upper Galilee last night. Fragments of the mine indicated that it was Chinese-made. A search yielded a road mine nearby which was dismantled. There were no casualties. An Israeli patrol silenced a band of saboteurs which attacked it in the Beisan area this morning.

Police arrested two East Jerusalem Arab youths in connection with yesterday’s bomb explosion at the Interior Ministry’s branch office in the Old City. No one was hurt in the blast.