The Soviet-made Katyusha rocket-launcher, a highly mobile deadly weapon, figured in widespread attacks on Israeli civilian settlements over the weekend, Maj. Gen. Chaim Bar-Lev, Chief of Staff of Israel’s armed forces, visited the new immigrant township of Mitzpah Ramon deep in the Negev, which was the target Friday of the first Katyusha rocket attack launched from Israeli soil. Hitherto Arab marauders have fired the rocket from behind the cease-fire lines. Arab saboteurs fired Katyusha rockets at Israel’s Timnah copper mines Thursday but caused neither casualties nor damage.
Rocket and mortar fire from Jordan hit four settlements in the Beisan Valley area Friday–Kfar Ruppin, Kinneret, Poria and Deganya Beth. In the latter, the regional council secretary Hillel Kimche suffered a fatal heart seizure as a result of the explosions. In Poria, a woman was injured by shell splinters. A new, larger rocket launcher was used–the 240-millimeter Katyusha. Previously, 133-millimeter Katyusha were fired.
Mitzpah Ramon, with a population of 3,000, lies some 70 miles south of Beersheva and less than 40 miles from the Jordanian border. The rocket attack caused little damage, but Israeli Army units were investigating how marauders managed to cross the border, penetrate Israeli soil to a point less than 10 miles from the village, fire their two rockets and escape. The Katyusha is light and can be transported by truck.
A military spokesman reported than an Israeli patrol came under machinegun fire from Jordanian territory in the northern Beisan Valley today. The patrol and other Israeli forces returned the fire.
Two soldiers and a civilian working with the Israeli Army were injured today when a military vehicle struck a mine in a Gaza street. Two soldiers were also injured when an Army vehicle hit a mine in the Negev. A hand-grenade thrown in Nablus missed an army truck but struck a local car, injuring seven local Arabs.
Two Israeli fighter-bombers Friday attacked and “silenced” Jordanian gun emplacements reported to have fired bazooka shells at a border patrol in the northern Beisan Valley, the military spokesman said.
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