State Department Urges Restoration by Israelis and Arabs of UN Cease Fire

The State Department today commented on Israeli air raids in the vicinity of Cairo that “there is urgent need for scrupulous restoration by both sides of the United Nations cease fire.” State Department spokesman Robert J. McCloskey said “we have repeatedly counselled restraint on both sides in order to avoid the continuing cycle of attack and counter-attack by both regular and irregular forces.” He asserted that “the height and level of violence across the cease fire line and in both sides’ territories and the death and destruction which results is disturbing to us.” The spokesman indicated that he was not responding specifically to today’s Israeli raids on Cairo but to the escalation of violence generally. He said that the United States counselled restraint wherever violence occurred.