CLASHES ON BORDER

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28257, 20 April 1957, Page 11

CLASHES ON BORDER

Israelis And Arabs

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) TEL AVIV, April 18. Israeli forces were reported to have clashed today with Jordanians in the Mount Hebron area and with Syrians on the banks of the Sea of Galilee.

An Israeli Army spokesman said that a band of eight or nine armed Jordanians ambushed an Israeli patrol moving close to Jordan’s lines. They were driven back after a gun battle lasting a few minutes, in which the Israelis suffered no casualties. Army officers said the Jordanians, armed with rifles and a machine gun, withdrew towards the Lasifar police station, where Jordanian police were watching the encounter. In the other incident, an Israeli patrol in the Sheik Ibrahim area north of the sea of Galilee was pinned down by Syrian fire but withdrew under cover from Israeli reinforcements which were rushed to the scene.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation had appealed to both Israel and Syria for a cease fire, and Israel had agreed. The commander of the United Nations Emergency Force, MajorGeneral E. L. M. Burns, protested to the Israeli authorities today against flights by Israeli planes over the Gaza Strip, says a message from Cairo. He complained of 14 cases of Israeli planes flying over the Gaza Strip up to March 26. He also complained of two other incidents, an Israeli patrol crossing the line on April 1, and firing by an Israeli patrol across the line against the Arabs on April 12. United Nations sources also announced that General Burns sent a letter to the Egyptian Administration in Gaza on April 8 complaining that Arab civilians were attempting to cross the demarcation line in the Danor sector. “As such actions are contrary to the announced policy of the Egyptian Government it is hoped effective action will be taken to prevent them,” said the letter.

An Israeli Army spokesman said in Tel Aviv.that an Israeli farmer was wounded today when a tractor he was driving struck a mine in the fields of the settlement of Nir David, in the Beisan Valley, about a mile west of the Jordan lines. The incident took place near the scene of Tuesday’s murder of two Israeli watchmen by maurauders from Jordan, the spokesman said.