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Israeli Jets in New Attack on El Fatah Positions in Jordan–3rd Time Since Sunday

March 20, 1969
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Israeli Jets strafed and bombed El Fatah positions in Jordan today in the third air strike against that country since Sunday. Troops on both sides exchanged tank, artillery, machinegun and mortar fire during the day. Both countries accused each other of starting the fighting which took place in the northern Jordan Valley south of Lake Tiberias. The Israeli Air Force attacked following Jordanian mortar fire on Israeli settlements in the Beisan valley. No Israeli casualties were reported. In other action, four Israeli soldiers were slightly injured today when their patrol car hit a mine near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli artillery along the Suez Canal scored direct hits on a power station in Port Suez, on Egyptian mortar positions and other targets in yesterday’s fighting, a military spokesman said. He said Israeli gunners pick out specific targets in contrast to Egyptian artillery massed on the West Bank of the canal which fires indiscriminately. The semi-official Cairo newspaper Al Ahram claimed today that Israel was massing missiles deep in the Sinai Peninsula for an attack on Egyptian positions along the canal. The paper accused Israel of firing machineguns at a passenger train on the canal’s West Bank yesterday and of shelling a freight train between Port Suez and Ismailia. Al Ahram did not indicate whether there were casualties but claimed that Egyptian gunners had inflicted “severe losses” on Israeli tanks and armored cars.

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