Lt. Col. George A. Flint, chairman of the Jordan-Israel Mixed Armistice Commission, who was killed during fighting between Israelis and Jordanians atop Mt. Scopus on May 26, was “probably shot by a bullet fired from Jordanian controlled territory,” according to a formal report from Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold to the United Nations Security Council today.
The report, sent to Mr. Hammarskjold by Maj. Gen. Carl C. von Horn, UN truce chief in Palestine, implies, however, that the Israelis may have been responsible for starting the shooting which resulted not only in the death of Col. Flint but also in the death of four Israelis and the wounding of two other Israelis.
According to Gen. von Horn’s report, the bullet that killed Col. Flint was fired by a sniper on the Jordanian side who continued shooting long after the Jordanians had accepted the United Nations request for a cease-fire. Gen. von Horn reported that the first complaint about firing was received from the Jordanian side, which accused the Israelis of opening fire on the afternoon of May 26. However, the report makes it clear that there was contradictory testimony from the Israelis and Jordanians “as to who fired first.”
In the section dealing with the procedures surrounding the investigation of Col. Flint’s death, Gen. von Horn accuses the Israelis of insufficient cooperation with the investigating team. The report does not mention that the Jordanians had refused to guarantee the safety of Israelis who might be called to give on-the-spot testimony. One of the sources of the difficulty involving the Mt. Scopus disagreement between Israel and Jordan is the fact that each side uses a different map, and each side insists that its map is the accurate one.
In a brief summary of his report Gen. von Horn declares “peaceful co-existence between the Arab villagers and police on Mt. Scopus is possible as long as contacts and conflict are avoided.” However, the Chief of UNTSO declared, “patrolling by the Israeli police in areas inhabited or cultivated by the Arabs has resulted in contacts and conflicts. Such patrolling is not ordered by the ‘UN commander.”
(Israeli circles at the UN said that full comment on the report should come from the Government in Jerusalem. However, they pointed out that there are two “striking and uncontestable facts” in the report. One of these facts is the “clear” finding that Jordanian bullets ended the life of Lt. Col. Flint and four Israeli policemen. The other is mention in the report of a Jordanian broadcast–which was reported to UNTSO by Israel–boasting that “Jordanian forces opened fire on the Israeli force from a Jordanian observation post.”)
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