U.N. To Discuss Israeli Air Raid

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31121, 26 July 1966, Page 17

U.N. To Discuss Israeli Air Raid

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, July 25. The United Nations Security Council will meet today to discuss the July 14 Israeli air raid on the Syrian project to divert waters of the river Jordan.

Syria and Israel each filed complaints against the other. The Syrian Ambassador, Mr George J. Tomeh, and the Israeli Ambassador, Mr Michael S. Comay, were to speak

first in the council debate. Mr Comay in a Note to the Council said that the raid • was meant to show Syria how ! gravely Israel viewed “con- ■ tinual Syrian violence.” He : blamed Syria for four land-

mine explosions in Israel that had killed two Israelis in the 24 hours before the raid. Mr Comay had previously accused Syria of being “the source, training ground, principal supplier and main support of a vicious terrorist organisation, variously known as El-Fatah (conquest) and El-Asefa (storm) . . . organised to penetrate Into Israeli territory and carry out acts of terrorism and sabotage.” Syrian Letter Mr Tomeh in a letter to the Council denied that the mines were planted by infiltrators from Syria. He said Syria could not “be held responsible for the activities of ElFatah and El-Asefa.”

In the Council's last Palestine debate, in 1964, a Moroccan resolution to condemn an Israeli air raid on Syria failed to get the nine votes necessary for adoption, and the Soviet Union vetoed a British-United States resolution deploring “the renewal of military action on the Israel-Syria” line. The Soviet Union still stands with Syria. Israel yesterday released four Egyptian seamen and their 100-ton schooner Umm Es Saad seized three weeks ago inside Israel’s territorial waters.

He said the Israeli planes had hit mechanical equipment, destroyed bulldozers and killed a woman.

The Syrian Ambassador said the planes struck “the area in which an economic development plan of vital importance to Syria and neighbouring countries is taking place.” He went on: “Israeli officials have made no secret that they will prevent the execution of this plan by force . . . the Israeli authorities, actively engaged as they are in usurping the Arab waters of the Jordan river, are determined to prevent any Arab country from proceeding to good use of its waters.”

The Egyptian seamen said at the time of the seizure that they were on their way from Port Said to Lebanon with a cargo of seaweed when they mistook Haifa for Beirut because of poor visibility.

The Arab river develop-

Iment scheme is a reaction to Ia similar Israeli scheme. In (1964, Israel started piping Jordan water to the Negev desert and warned that she would “act for the preservation of her vital rights” if the Arab countries took “unilateral and illegal measures.” An Arab League summit meeting in Alexandria then called for “immediate work on projects for the exploitation of the waters of the river Jordan and its tributaries." The Jordanian delegation has announced that it will introduce a resolution to condemn the air attack. Last Debate