Thant Accuses Israel of Thwarting Humanitarian Mission; Israel Rejects Charge

United Nations Secretary-General U Thant has blamed Israel for thwarting his efforts to investigate the humanitarian problems arising from the June, 1967 Middle East war. Mr. Thant charged in a report issued here Friday that Israel’s insistence that the inquiry cover the condition of Jews in the Arab countries as well as Arabs in the Israel-occupied territories made it impossible for him to dispatch a mission authorized by a resolution of the Security Council.

Mr. Thant’s report was prefaced by a series of letters he exchanged with the nations involved in the Middle East conflict. They included a letter from Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban which denied that his Government was imposing “conditions” on the inquiry. “We ask only that the mission should have an equal opportunity to investigate the situation of Jewish communities cruelly persecuted in the Arab countries since the recent conflict,” Mr. Eban wrote. “This is clearly within the scope of the relevant resolutions. I am at a loss to understand why this should cause any difficulty.”

The Secretary-General contended that Israel was trying to broaden the mission beyond the scope of the Security Council resolution that called for an inquiry into conditions “in the area of conflict.” The Arab interpretation of the resolution has been that it referred only to Arabs in the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War.

Mr. Eban charged in his letter that it was the Arab governments which were imposing conditions and said Israel had never objected to having a UN emissary carry out his mission in Israel-held territories. He noted that Israel had cooperated with the similar inquiry begun last year by Nils-Goran Gussing of Sweden. Mr. Gussing was not permitted by the Arabs to investigate conditions of Jews in their territory.