Israel Sees Egypt’s International Army on Suez, Estimated at 50,000 Men

Egypt is building up what is “virtually an international army” along the Suez Canal, Col. Uri, commander of Israel’s forces on the east bank of the waterway, said today. He estimated that there are now 50,000 soldiers along Egypt’s western shore of the canal, many of them wearing foreign uniforms which are obviously not Egyptian. The soldiers are from Kuwait, Algeria and the Sudan, and are equipped with large numbers of tanks and artillery pieces, he declared.

I. Shargil, the JTA correspondent here, returned today from a first-hand view of the situation along the Suez Canal area. He reported that, at the point where the Suez Canal enters the Red Sea, and the site of last week’s thunderous Israeli attack against Egypt’s oil refinery complex, “we could see clearly the destruction wrought by Israel’s artillery at Port Ibrahim and Port Suez, where Israel’s guns destroyed 80 percent of Egypt’s oil refining capacity. On the Egyptian side, we could still see smoke coming from the ruined Egyptian installations and from Egyptian oil tankers knocked out by the Israelis.”

“On the Israeli side,” he reported, “soldiers were going about their usual routine affairs, but with one difference. It was Sukkoth, and they had built a Sukkah for themselves midst the walls of old. demolished Egyptian warehouses. Their Sukkoh was decorated traditionally with palms and other greens usually used for the Sukkoth festival. Even while the fighting was underway, the Israeli soldiers went to their sukkoh whenever they had a few minutes.”