Disengagement on canal; fighting on Syrian front

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33451, 5 February 1974, Page 13

Disengagement on canal; fighting on Syrian front

A.-KtUNr—Copyrtjht» TEI \\ IV. bebruan 4. Israeli and Egyptian forces arc due to end the second stage <•! then disengagement at noon today against a background of continuing lighting on the Syrian It uni. The Egyptian Third Army on the east bank of the Suez, ( anal "ill be reduced I” hall it* strength and Israeli troops pulled yet further hack toward* pre-war positions.

i The Israelis on the west'! 'bank of the canal, in what'i one field commander called < “our agreed exodus from I

> our agreed exodus front > Egypt." The Israeli foreign minis■try sources said yesterday f that the Foreign Minister i iMr Abba Ebani mat go to I Washington next month to discuss the Geneva Middli East peace conference. Bi t much would depend on <L - velopments in the xolatde Syrian front, (hey said Ihe 1 mance Minister (Mt Pinhas Sapir) told his < abi net colleagues yesterday 'hat ; Israel last year spent 48 per cent of its Gross National Product (G N.P ) on defeno and the proportion would be I even higher this year.

Egypt,” will form a new; temporary defence line near Geneifa, close to the Little Bitter Lake. Unit commanders interviewed by Israeli Army radio said that the troops who lunged over the canal in the closing stages of the October war would be leaving largely empty desert; from which all Israeli equip-, ment and captured booty had been removed and fortifications blown up. Firing erupted on the, northern front with Syria for the eighth day running. An Army spokesman in Tel Aviv reported a seven-hour, artillery and tank battle yesterday. Some 20,000 men of Egypt’s Third Army were believed trapped on the east

[bank when the Israelis swept east and south to Suez and Adabiya. They and Suez town were freed in the first stage of the Israeli withdrawal to north of the Suez-Cairo road two weeks ago. The Israelis will pull back .between 10 kilometres and 18 kilometres today. They ;had already left al! non-es-sential equipment amassed during their occupation ot 1000 square kilometres, the commander of the rearguard unit told Army radio. “We are now completely mobile as we were during hhe actual fighting.” he said. I “We shall be falling back to hold the new line and then withdraw again in the following phased stages of