BORDERS OF ISRAEL

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28104, 20 October 1956, Page 11

BORDERS OF ISRAEL

Report To U.N. Council

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.20 p.m.) NEW YORK. October 18 The United Nations SecretaryGeneral, Mr Dag Hammarskjold, today condemned the practice of any Palestine power of taking militarv action on the basis of its own unchecked investigations of border incidents. The United Nations Security Council will meet tomorrow morning to hear counter-comnlaints from Jordan and Israel on the border fighting. The council was expected to hear both sides and then adjourn for private consultation in what action should be taken. Mr Hammarskjold sent his report to the council as a covering note to the official account of last Thursday’s attack by Israelis on a Jordanian town sent bv Major-General E. L. M Burns, chief of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation in Palestine. Citing General Burns’s renort in reference to the October 10 and previous border incidents. Mr Hammarskjold said: “At present, the situation is that one of the parties to the general armistice agreement makes its own investigations. which are not —and cannot be made —subject to check or confirmation by the United Nations observers. publishes the result of such investigations, draws its own contusions from them and undertakes actions by its military forces on that basis. “I endorse the view of the chief of staff that this is a dangerous negation of vital elements of the armistice agreement. It represents a further step in the motion of a limitation of the functions of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation . . ” Boycott by Israel In his report. General Burns noted that Israel boycotted a meeting of the Mixed Armistice Commission to consider the Israeli attack on the Jordan outpost town of Kalkilya last week General Burns said that United Nations military observers saw the bodies of 48 Jordanians. The Israeli authorities, in press statements, reported the death of 18 members of their forces, he said “The casualties resulting from this incident are the highest since the Gaza incident in April, 1956.” the report said. General Burns’s report included statistics of available casualties for 1955 and the first nine months of this year The report showed that a total of 297 Arabs (Egyptians. Syrians. Jordanians and Lebanese) had been killed and 222 wounded, compared with Israeli casualties of 63 dead and 172 wounded.

The figures for the first nine months of 1956 showed 199 Arabs dead and 197 wounded compared with 58 Israeli dead and 160 wounded