Civilians Killed In Air Raid On Cairo

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32209, 30 January 1970, Page 13

Civilians Killed In Air Raid On Cairo

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) CAIRO, January 29. Israeli jet aircraft struck at Cairo yesterday for the first time since the six-day war of June, 1967. According to the Egyptian Military Command, they hit a suburb, killing three civilians and wounding 12.

The capital was shaken by the explosions and by the firing of Egyptian anti-aircraft guns. Black puffs from anti-aircraft shells dotted the sky around the raiders.

A Government spokesman said that three houses were destroyed in Maadi, a suburban district of plush homes on the River Nile, about six miles from the centre of Cairo.

A military communique said that the Israeli planes also attacked a base at Dahshur, about 15 miles south of Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile.

The raids were apparently aimed at military installations at Maadi and Dahshur, but the Government’s official spokesman told reporters that this, and other raids in the Nile Delta, in recent weeks, were aimed at civilians and were an abortive effort to undermine the morale of the Egyptian people. “The Government and the Egyptian people are now fully prepared for an incident from the Israelis,” he added. No Sirens No air raid sirens sounded before today’s attack, which may have been too sudden for the civil defence authori-i ties to give a warning. A jet aircraft can reach Cairo from the Suez Canal in about a minute and a half. Electric power supplies in some city areas were cut for half an hour, apparently as part of air raid precautions. Many of Maadi’s comfortable villas are occupied by American oil-field workers and their families, and some by American diplomats at-1 tached to the Spanish Embassy. Egypt severed diplomat.c! relations with the United'

States during the 1967 war. One of about seven British children among the pupils at the American school in Maadi when the bombs began to fall today, said: “We saw the Israeli planes. Some of the windows fell in, and there was a bit of panic among the younger children.” The raid, and its civilian casualties, seemed to bring nearer the possibility of Egyptian reprisal actions against civilian areas in Israel. President Nasser has given a warning in public speeches that Egyptian bombers can also reach Tel Aviv quickly. Last night. President Nasser conferred with the Soviet Ambassador (Mr Sergei Vinogradov). Israel’s Strategy In Tel Aviv, the Israeli Minister of Defence (General Moshe Dayan) explaining Israel’s strategy on the Egyptian front, told a meeting of the Foreign Press Association: “We have no line that is holding us back in Egypt. If we can go as far and as deep as we can, we do it But if Egypt once again goes back to the cease-fire, then we will accept it right away.” The general said that one of the main aims of Israel’s deep air strikes was to prevent Egypt from starting a new war. “If they are not strong enough to drive us out of the skies of Cairo, then they are not strong enough to launch an all-out war,” he said. According to an Israeli military spokesman, the Egyptian Air Force did not engage the attacking planes in yesterday’s raid, and there was only weak and ineffective antiaircraft fire. All the Israeli aircraft returned safely to base. Speaking before reports reached Tel Aviv from Cairo saving that three civilians had

been killed in the raid, General Dayan said that Israel did not attack civilian targets, and he implied that it would do so only in retaliation for Egyptian attacks on Israeli towns. ‘No Alternative’ He denied that Israel’s actions against Egypt constituted a war of provocation. Israel had no alternative, he said, in view of the Egyptian war of attrition proclaimed when President Nasser repudiated the cease-fire along the Suez Canal. “As far as we are concerned we would like peace, and if not peace, then at least to maintain the cease-fire,” the general said. “What we are doing now is to show the Egyptians that their war of attrition is more costly to them than it is to us, and that it is going to be heavier on them,” General Dayan said. “Our major objective is to make it easier for our people to hold the line. It is not aimed at bringing about the downfall of Nasser personally. I can't see that we can do that, and 1 don’t see it as an objective, and 1 don’t know whether it would.

“But it brings to the mind of the Egyptians what the situation really is . . . that their political and military leadership is not leading them in the right way.” Four hours after the Cairo raid, Israeli jets attacked Jordanian artillery batteries in the Gilead Hills in the north of the Jordan Valley, after the Jordanian guns had fired on an outpost at Darbashiye, in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Half and hour later, Israeli planes made another hourlong sortie, bombing Egyptian mortar positions in the northern sector of the Suez Canal.