Acting on a joint request of the United States, Britain and France, the United Nations Security Council will meet urgently tomorrow morning to consider the tension that has developed during the week-end between Israel and Jordan following the retaliatory action taken by Israelis against a Jordan village from where raids have been made into Israel territory by Arabs killing innocent Israeli residents.
Jordan claims that 66 persons were killed and nine injured during the Israeli attack on the Jordan village which took place last Wednesday night. Israel asserts that during 1952, Arab armistice violation had resulted in 135 casualties, including 60 killed.
The United Nations headquarters made public the text of the request submitted by the Western Big Three powers to the president of the Security Council. The request was made in identical letters sent yesterday by the chiefs of the American, British and French delegations to the United Nations. The text reads:
“I have the honor on behalf of the Government of the United States, to request you to call an urgent meeting of the Security Council to consider, under ‘the Palestine question,’ the matter of the tension between Israel and the neighboring Arab states with particular reference to recent acts of violence and to compliance with and enforcement of the General Armistice Agreements.
“The United States Government believes that prompt consideration of this question by the Security Council is necessary to prevent a possible threat to the security of the area, and, in this connection that the Council would, in the first instance, be assisted by a report in person as soon as possible from the Chief of Staff of the Truce Supervision Organization.”
The Big Three action resulted from talks in London this week-end of U. S, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and Foreign Minister Georges Bidault of France. The Security Council Is expected to ask Maj. Gen. Vagn Bennike, chief of the U. N. Truce Commission In the Palestine area, to come to London by plane in order to present a first-hand report on the situation.
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