Crucial Cabinet Meeting

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32395, 7 September 1970, Page 13

Crucial Cabinet Meeting

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) JERUSALEM, September 6. Mrs Golda Meir’s Cabinet will hold a crucial policy meeting today amid a mounting campaign for action on Israel’s charges that Egypt has repeatedly broken the 90-day Middle East cease-fire.

As Israeli troops thrust into Lebanon against Arab guerrillas this week-end, the leaders of Israel called in radio and television interviews for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles said to have been moved secretly into the Suez Canal standstill zone.

General Moshe Dayan, the Defence Minister, said that otherwise a new cease-fire agreement should be drawn up. He also warned that Israel must retain a military alternative to avoid being pushed back from the ceasefire lines.

Both General Dayan and the Foreign Minister. Mr Abba Eban, said that the United States must try to get Egypt to abide by the ceasefire and stressed that this issue directly affected the indirect peace talks at United Nations headquarters in New York.

The talks have been stalled for more than a week since the Israeli representative, the United Nations Ambassador, Mr Josef Tekoah, was recalled for consultations about the alleged cease-fire violations.

Mr Tekoah was today still standing by in Jerusalem pending a decision by the Cabinet on when to return to New York.

The Israeli Government yesterday again accused Egypt of breaking the ceasefire, and the Army spokesman

last night told a press briefing that Soviet missiles set up in Egypt only seven miles from the Suez Canal were capable of striking well inside Israeli-held Sinai.

The Army also announced the conclusion yesterday of a two-day search-and-destroy operation against Arab commandos on the slopes of Mount Hermon in southern Lebanon—subject of a complaint by the Lebanese Government to the United Nations Security Council. A military spokesman said that only a small Israeli ground force, supported by two air raids, had been engaged and it suffered no! casualties.